


Ultraviolet

by ehbi



Category: Teen Titans (Animated Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Boarding School, And Raven grows into a BAMF that can stop the apocalypse, Angst, Crossdressing, Eventual Romance, F/M, Love Triangles, Sexual Confusion, in which Richard Grayson believes he is in love with a man, just read it, with a side agenda of falling into a love triangle
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-23
Updated: 2013-11-23
Packaged: 2018-01-02 10:45:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 32,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1055865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ehbi/pseuds/ehbi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"So," he'd said, his hot breath ghosting across the side of her face. "What is a girl doing in an all boy's school?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> View the work in its (almost) entirety here - https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5649572/1/Ultraviolet

 

* * *

 

_"_ The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?"

  
_—Edgar Allan Poe,_ The Premature Burial

 

* * *

  
_St. Louise Orphanage of Gotham City—October 31_ _st_ _, 2008, All Hallow's Eve Night_

* * *

Hushed whispers floated in the dim corridor. Faint screams echoed off of the stone walls, almost inaudible against the roar of thunder outside the stained glass windows of the convent. The nuns huddled around the door to the locked chamber, pushing against each other for a chance to hear what was going on inside. Every so often something would crash against the door and they would all jump, frantically making the sign of the cross.

Footsteps hurriedly coming from the end of the hall caused the sisters to spin around with a start. A cloaked figure was making its way down the corridor to where they stood eavesdropping.

"I need to be let into that room right away," said the stranger. Their scarlet hood was up, but from the voice, it sounded to be a woman. "Someone in there needs my help, and you are sorely unequipped to give it."

One of the novices stepped forward, blocking the outsider's way to the quivering door. "I apologize, but who are you? It is most dangerous to be near here at the moment. And how dare you insinuate that our priest is not equipped for this job?"

The mysterious visitor let her hood fall back, and the sisters let out an audible gasp as they recognized her. Phaesya, a world renowned psychic and powerful mystic—of course she had heard what had been going on at the convent. The convent sisters preferred not to believe in clairvoyance, and despised the Justice League's so-called psychics. Phaesya knew that she was not welcomed there, or any convent, really, so for her to have come despite that…the situation must be worse than they had expected.

A rather loud thump sounded against the door and Phaesya raised her eyebrows. One would call the look smug if everyone wasn't already high strung—and rightly so. One of their orphan charges had been the source of most disturbing occurrences as of late, and that evening the Mother Superior had agreed to call in a priest for an exorcism. Every cross in the abbey had been inverted to their shock and horror that morning, and odd rust-colored streaks marked the floor in a path leading directly to 13-year-old Rachel Roth's room.

They had questioned all of their wards, to be fair, but every sister knew that the peculiar girl was behind it all. Odd things happened every year on her birthday, and this night was no different. If anything, this night was the most heinous of them all. The sisters had always been certain that there was something seriously wrong with the raven-haired girl since the day she'd arrived on their doorstep eight years ago with only a desperate note and a twenty-dollar bill crushed in her fist. When asked her name, the child had recited solemnly, "My name is Rachel Roth. I am five years old, and I live on 367 Howard Place. It's nice to meet you."

It had been obvious that whoever had brought her there had abandoned her to the care of the convent. Originally the Reverend Mother Theresa Agnes had been against taking in another orphan, but one of the elderly sisters had taken to the stoic, unblinking child and was already showing her to a room. The abbess, of course, would not refuse the elderly nun who'd run the convent before her and had allowed for the child to remain, even though the child's unflinching stare unnerved her.

Their suspicions had first been piqued when one of the sisters found some of Rachel's drawings stuffed between her thin mattress while performing her daily rounds. Nearly all of the drawings were totally black, her crayon had rubbed so vigorously that parts of the paper were worn through. All of them featured an almost perfectly rendered horned man, skin as red as fresh blood and stare so evil it made the nun's heart stutter.

They questioned Rachel about the man in her pictures on several occasions—every time she gave the same answer: "That's my dad." And every time, she gave them a look that seemed to question their sanity, as if it were obvious that she was devil spawn and that they were all ninnies. Sister Mary Lucille defended her, naturally, explaining it away as just a young child's imagination.

When the other orphans began to complain that Rachel had been visiting their bedchambers at the most unholy hours of the night, watching them in their sleep and giving them horrid nightmares, Sister Mary Lucille defended her, rebuking the nuns for allowing their voiced suspicions to startle the children and that Rachel had done no such thing. Again, the abbess of St. Louise did nothing, and allowed the elder to care for Rachel.

Things escalated further, and eventually earlier that year the elderly nun took ill and died. Immediately after learning of her dearest friend's death, Rachel went into a coma and did not awaken for three weeks. All of the strange things happening around the convent came to a dead halt only confirming the nuns' hunch that the child was either possessed or truly fathered by some profane, godless being.

When she finally woke up, however, it was worse than before. Finally, after that evening's debacle, the nuns called a frantic conference with the abbess, and there they were, shaken and at the end of their wits.

"Obviously it is not going well in there. Step aside, Sister. It is more dangerous for your headmistress to remain in there alone with what is truly ailing the child. Please, if you do not want another death tonight."

The novice's eyes widened sharply. " _Another_  death? What do you—?" There was a collective gasp as Phaesya's lack of mentioning the priest sunk in, and the nuns quickly parted like a hot knife slicing through butter.

Phaesya opened the door, and was immediately greeted with a blast of foul-smelling air. She stepped into the chamber, her boots making an odd  _schlop-_ ing noise on the wet stones. She was standing in someone's blood, and from the looks of the collared priest who slumped against the wall to her left, neck bent at an impossible angle, it was his.

A relieved gasp from her right reassured her that the Reverend Mother was at least still alive, and she caught a glimpse of her face before she passed out in a dead faint, her habit stained a dark brown from the priest's blood that was seeping under their feet. She shut the door behind her, preventing the other nuns from entering and seeing the crumpled body of the father and their headmistress's indisposed state.

Finally, she looked to the center of the candlelit room, where the cause of all of the chaos stood immobile—too still to possibly be  _alive_. She was but four or four and a half feet, and slight. On first glance no one would believe that such a slight thing could be causing so much terror, but Phaesya knew better. The girl's hair covered her face like a sheet made of black ink, and upon closer inspection she noticed that her bare feet cleared the floor by at least a foot.

Deep shadows, too black to be natural flickered along the walls, pulsating and tentatively reaching their tendrils along the walls towards Phaesya. They licked at her boots, and she could feel a biting cold sear straight through to her bone.

 _Those fools._. It seemed as if whatever abilities she had, she obviously had no control over them. When they cornered her, threatening her with an exorcism and no doubt terrifying the poor girl with their accusations, she'd lost it, and gave whatever part of herself that harbored these dark powers full control in self-defense.

"Rachel, I know you can hear me. Everything is going to be okay, but I need you to calm down," Phaesya said softly. She approached her, raising her hands and offering her empty palms in the classic I-mean-no-harm gesture. The girl gave no response as she drew near, and continued to hover, unnervingly still.

Phaesya felt something metallic clatter against her boot; a small, crucifix on a broken chain lay abandoned at her feet. She could feel energy radiating from it, and picked it up to get a reading. Fond memories of an older woman flitted across her eyelids at the speed of light, and she concluded that someone very close to the girl had embedded their spirit into the stone. Fittingly so, as well, seeing as lapis lazuli was an excellent spiritual conductor and psychic amplifier.

"Did they take this from you, Rachel?" She asked on a hunch, and her guess was confirmed by the agitation of the almost tangible shadows surrounding the girl's frozen form. "They had no right to take it. You feel better when you wear it right?"

Almost imperceptibly, Rachel's head dipped in an apparent nod. Phaesya dared closer, mistaking the girl's response as a sign that she was calming down. Suddenly, her head whipped up in a movement too fast to consider human, and she grabbed Phaesya by the collar, forcing her to look into her face. Four crimson eyes bored holes into the depths of her being, at odds with the fanged, twisted grin that marred the child's angelic face.

Rachel's inhuman gaze shook Phaesya to her very soul, and she could feel her resolve beginning to falter.

"R-rachel, please, I am here to help you…" she stuttered, hating the weakness in her voice and how her courage seemed to flea in the presence of a child twenty years her junior.

" _You cannot help me._ " She said it sweetly, but the voice that responded to her was not that of a thirteen-year-old girl, but of something far more depraved, and far older than the earth itself. The acrid, too-sweet smell of death and rotting flesh invaded Phaesya's nostrils and she shuddered in Rachel's iron grip.

" _I shall be the end of all things mortal._ " She moved her mouth to the psychic's ear, and her whisper sent chills racing down her spine. " _Women and children will be slaughtered like pigs in their beds, and the entire earth will burn with everlasting fire. None will be able to restrain me, and the puny human race will be reduced to ants beneath my feet._ "

Phaesya struggled against her grip, bringing the lazuli cross into contact with the skin on Rachel's forehead, and chanted a spell of expulsion, the most powerful one she knew. There was a chance that it wouldn't work, as whatever was in this girl was drawing from part of her very soul, a part of her that was symbiotic with her being.

Whatever was possessing Rachel chuckled at her efforts, white fangs flashing with the sporadic lightning. But the spell seemed to be taking hold, and the girl began to shiver. The demon possessing Rachel gave Phaesya one last shake, and as it left her body it whispered a deadly promise psychic's ear: " _I vow that in five years time, I will be back to claim what's rightfully mine."_

Phaesya sank to the floor just as Rachel slumped to the ground before her and she watched as the crucifix dissolve into the space in her forehead leaving a single, blue, diamond-shaped stone to adorn her  _Ajna_  chakra.

The eavesdropping nuns stumbled back when a mentally and physically exhausted Phaesya threw open the door, clutching a limp, but no longer possessed Rachel in her arms. She swept past the sisters, eager to leave the forsaken convent orphanage and get back home to Jump City.

"Your priest is dead. You may want to call an ambulance," she called, almost as an afterthought, over her shoulder to the nuns who hadn't moved an inch and had been staring after her openmouthed. They didn't make any move to stop her from taking Rachel, stunned by the weight of her words and everything that had just transpired.

She would take the girl to Bijoux Academy, where the Justice League had already dispatched a team of healers to receive her. She had five years to figure out the poor kid's parentage, and hopefully circumvent an apocalypse at the same time.

But first, she'd have to be trained.


	2. Ruby / "Piqued"

 

 

* * *

"It was night and the rain fell; and falling, it was rain, but, having fallen, it was blood."

  
_—Edgar Allan Poe,_ Silence _—_ a Fable

 

* * *

_Four Years Later, Bijoux Academy, end of fourth year_

* * *

Raven was  _seething_. She couldn't remember a single time in her life when she had been more enraged. The emerald green gilded wallpaper lining the fourth-year dorm's corridor bubbled and peeled as she stormed by, the lights flickering in their bulbs only to shatter as she passed directly under them.

Phaesya, the school's Justice League-appointed overseer, psychic trainer—and probably the only person in the  _entire godforsaken school_  that she could stomach having a conversation with—had gone into hiding for some bizarre reason a year ago, and no one thought she was mature enough to know where. Phaesya had been with Raven every step of the way since she woke up in the infirmary with no memory of who she was and where she came from. They had come up with the name "Raven" together, and she had helped her control her abilities. She and Raven had been in the middle of a breakthrough researching her origins when one day, her mentor had just up and disappeared without warning. The last thing she'd said to her sounded ominous, it was a warning or something for her 18th birthday next year, but she'd never got the chance to ask her about it.

Her counselor's disappearance wasn't what angered her the most, though—she'd learned to get over, or at least repress, her feelings of abandonment. What pissed her off was that ever since Phaesya left, the school started slacking. It seemed that since Phaesya wasn't there to monitor the school's policies and standards and reporting their every move to the JLA, they decided that it was okay to let their institution to become nothing more than a glorified private school. The Justice League hadn't done an inspection since Phaesya left, as they were dealing with some very pressing intergalactic matters, and had been in negotiations even before the psychic left.

Their new headmistress had even begun to accept  _bribes—_ she called them  _donations_ , of course—from high-class women from as far as Gotham City to enroll their daughters, superhuman or not, in the once famed Bijoux Academy for Gifted Young Women. They only wanted to brag to their socialite friends that their daughters were receiving education in the most prestigious training school founded by the Justice League themselves.

So now their school was filled with tittering airheads who had no passion for learning to fight and harness their abilities, and fainted at the mere sight of blood. The head of the physical training department quit when the administration announced that due to large request of the school's generous benefactors, it would be best if the students were not taught such vigorous and dangerous exercises, and that it was bad for their 'delicate constitutions'.

In other words, worried wealthy mothers feared that their precious heiresses would break a nail while learning to fight the things that went bump in the night.

Many of the older students who were not 'noble-born' had already dropped out; the school's half-hearted classes were proving more and more obsolete. Some returned to their towns to play the role of the 'masked vigilante' and some had deviated further, joining delinquent gangs and preferring to live a life of crime. Raven had not been one of the deserters, as the school had been her home for the past four years, and she was loathe to leave the one place that had given her stability without all of the dirty looks. Here, everyone was a freak, or at least, everyone  _had_ been until the upperclass invaded their safe haven.

Their most recent arrival had been the Princess of the planet Tamaran, Koriand'r. She preferred to go by Kori or Starfire, and as far as Raven could tell, although she was superhuman, she was just as much a snob as the rest of the wealthy classmates. Herself, of course, being a scholarship student, had the pleasure of having to share a room with the royal. She had, up until now, suffered through the princess's endless barrage of idiotic questions and insistence that Raven move her bed to the walk-in closet because 'commoners are not allowed to share a room with royalty'.

Tonight, the alien had followed through with her threat to remove Raven from the main room, and she had returned from an evening class to see that all of her things, what few she had, had been unceremoniously dumped into her walk-in closet. Innocently, Starfire reclined comfortably on her abnormally large purple bed which she had moved to the center of the room. She apparently was talking to her boyfriend, Dick, whom she called every night and made obnoxious kissing noises to well into the morning hours. Her weird-ass pet  _thing_ "Silkie" _—_ pets weren't even  _allowed_  in the dorms—had been all over the room, leaving a thick coating of disgusting slime on all of the surfaces.

So, in a moment of temporary insanity, Raven calmly went up to the headmistress's office to complain. Why she thought the headmistress would entertain her request was beyond her, but she had to do  _something_ , or else a certain princess would meet a very,  _very_  tragic end.

The headmistress's response to Raven's plea to be given a new room, or at least to be transferred to someone  _else's_  earned her a stern reprimand and a warning that if she were less than polite to their royal Tamaranian guest, she would be disgracefully booted from the school in the blink of an eye.

It was with some satisfaction that she lost control briefly as she exited the office, as she heard the Headmistress's computer abruptly explode, surely losing whatever nonsense she had been working on.

Instead of returning to her room, Raven left the campus, hoping to find some streetrat doing something idiotic and at least borderline criminal so she could justify snuffing their lights out. She knew that if she went back to her room, she would not be polite, and the entire school would probably hear the teens exchanging death blows. Tempting as it was, Raven did not want to be the cause of Tamaran declaring war with her city.

The streets were nearly empty, though, with curfew about to set in and all. Jump City's mayor had called for one after the recent attacks from a group of criminals calling themselves the Slayers. Being a student from Bijoux granted her immunity from the curfew, since its students were  _supposed_ to be experts at defending themselves and the general public. This was at least somewhat true for Raven, though she expected her fighting skills were extremely rusty after such a long time not being able to train.

As she strolled the main road in the waning twilight, watching shopkeepers close their shops and mothers ushering their children off of the streets or hurrying to catch the last bus, she thought about not returning to Bijoux.

Although it had been her home for much of her teenage years, she wouldn't be leaving much of anything, or any _one_ , behind. No one would miss her, either. Many of the professors were gone, some defecting to Bijoux's brother school, The Paladin Institute. According to the news, superhero education at the Paladin Institute had recently surpassed Bijoux's. It was rumored to have intensive training classes, and as many specialized professors as there were super powers. It was funded by the billionaire Bruce Wayne and many of the Justice League heroes taught there when not in service. It had an extremely selective admission process—a policy that Bijoux would no doubt benefit from—and was extremely serious about efficiently training their students.

An idea began to form in the back of Raven's mind. It was one that had crossed her mind before, but she'd always dismissed it as being far too ridiculous and risky. Maybe she was still a little… _unsettled_ …from her previous emotional state, but the crazy idea was sounding more and more plausible, and she knew just the person who could help her pull it off.

With a renewed purpose in her step, she left the main road for one of her favored shortcuts that led to Byter's place. She moved quickly, not flying as to not cause too much attention to herself. Byter had to remain hidden from the outside world, for there were plenty of people who could either use her abilities for their personal gain, or kill her for causing their downfall. Suffice it to say, she had a lot of enemies.

The entrance to the old park was deserted, thankfully, as she glanced around to make sure no one saw her phase through the locked gate. She had to be very careful, as it was easy to miss the rip in the air that led to Byter's hideaway in the fading light. Raven had helped her create it herself and it was  _still_ hard to find, even in broad daylight. Which was kind of how they intended it to be, but that did not make it any less annoying.

With a bit of very complex magic and technology, the two had created a sort of suspended reality that could house Byter and her 'super-computer lair'—as Raven had affectionately named Byter's array of gadgets and interfaces, some FBI standard and some  _alien_ —safely. It only responded to their distinct energies; Byter was pretty much non-existent to the real world. It acted as a sort of vacuum in which Byter could access the intergalactic mainframe, but they could not access her in return.

Finally she found the rip, a thin ribbon of  _not-air_  glimmering between two large oaks. She glanced around once more, and once she was certain no one had followed her, she slipped inside.

"Wow, sugar queen, it's been a while." Byter turned from whatever it was she was building now to flash Raven one of her thousand-watt grins. Anyone looking at Byter for the first time would assume she wasn't even ten, with her messy blonde pigtails and oversized jumper. Raven didn't know Byter's true age, but she wouldn't be surprised if she turned out to be older than her. Noticing the strained look on the darker haired girl, her grin dimmed a bit. "You don't look so hot. What's going on?"

Raven sighed, collapsing onto a beanbag chair near Byter's worktable. The inside of the rip was far larger than one would have expected, and could expand or contract depending on Byter's needs. It resembled the interior of a witch's workshop, but instead of bubbling cauldrons and satchels of herbs or vials of poison, almost every surface was covered with blinking screens and keyboards. It had wooden floors and large, one-way bay windows that lined the walls and led to anywhere Byter wanted to observe at the moment. The roof was a large pane of glass, sometimes depicting a brilliant sunny day, and sometimes depending on Byter's mood, fat drops of rain would threaten to shatter it. Currently they were apparently in the middle of a busy street in Gotham, and a clear night sky twinkled darkly above them. Raven still didn't understand how they had accomplished this miracle of a place, and accredited it to some odd stroke of luck and their combined magic.

For even though Byter would deny it vehemently, the petite girl possessed some kind of powerful magic, she knew. Raven was sure that they would not have been able to build this haven out of thin air with her own magic that was untrustworthy at best.

Raven watched Byter's fingers moving deftly as they assembled whatever new piece of equipment she was designing and sighed. "I was thinking…"

" _That_  never goes well…" Byter muttered, making Raven roll her eyes.

"I was  _thinking_  that maybe it's time I…transferred schools." She paused, watching Byter's reaction, but her hidden meaning didn't seem to have sunk in. Byter stared at her blankly, a question plainly written on her face.

"Uh…obviously you came here needing my help, but I can't imagine why you need help to transfer schools…" she replied, confusion schooling her normally cheerful features into a frown. "Unless. UNLESS. Raven. No." Raven could sense the exact moment Byter caught the gist of what she was saying and she rushed to explain herself.

"It would only be for a couple years, and that's it! It's almost time for fifth year to begin, and after I graduate they'll never see me again! Come on, Byte, you know how horrid Bijoux has been recently. Please, I need you, you're the only one that can help."

Despite the obvious flattery, the look on Byter's face was less than encouraging, and Raven pulled at her hair in desperation. The blonde shook her head at Raven's pleading face, closing her eyes so that she wouldn't have to see the doe eyes the taller girl was making at her. It took a lot for Raven to ask a favor, and that said something, but Byter simply couldn't agree knowing the danger it would put her in.

"Raven, if you get found out, you would immediately be labeled an enemy spy! They would torture and interrogate you for information, and demand to know who you are working for! The Justice League could even get involved!" Even as she said this, though, Byter could tell from the stubborn look on her friend's face that these were risks she was more than willing to take. "What could you possibly gain from going to that school?"

"Better training obviously. And…I was hoping…that maybe they'd know who I am…where I come from…" Raven trailed off and dipped her head, letting her ebony locks shield her reddened face. "Their library is far more advanced than ours…they probably have books written all about me and what I am."

Byter softened, knowing that Raven had been searching for answers about her heritage nonstop since the two had been grade-mates back in first year. She felt guilty about not wanting to help, as Raven had helped her so many times in the past. Saved her life even. Reluctantly, she dropped her electronic wrench and extended a hand to her friend.

"Fine. But first, we're going to have to cut that pretty hair of yours."


	3. Topaz / "Determined"

* * *

  
_"_ They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night."

_—Edgar Allan Poe_

* * *

_Three weeks later, Paladin Institute Transport Authority_

* * *

To say that Raven was nervous was an understatement. She stood, fidgeting, on the bus depot where the shuttlecraft was scheduled to pick up returning fifth-year Azures—the school's term for their juniors (apparently the grades were color-coded, much like the jewel grade system at Bijoux)—for the new semester. She'd arrived at dawn, and an hour early against her better judgement, as she knew that the other students would gawk at her. Apparently the school didn't really accept students older than fifteen, and at seventeen, Raven was surely going to be an anomaly. She really didn't need the extra attention as she wasn't even sure her disguise was holding up properly.

Thankfully, the uniform policy was strict at Paladin; everyone had to wear the same loose gray slacks and large blazer the color of whatever their grade level was while on campus. Being an Azure, Raven's blazer was a deep blue the color of the sky, and a sapphire crest on her jacket bore the name "Wren Lee", and the title,  _Sorcerer in Training._  She had to commend Byter on her skills, really. Not only did she procure a trust fund to pay Raven's tuition seemingly out of nowhere, the officials inside the institute's transport facility hadn't even blinked at her forged paperwork, and had quickly taken her picture and handed her a brand new ID, along with the uniform she had to change into before boarding the shuttlecraft. It was a little worrying how easy everything was, seeing as potentially, any supervillain could infiltrate the school in the same way. However, not every supervillain had an intergalactic computer genius that could alter school records as easily as breathing in their back pocket, either.

Byter had to have some kind of magic,  _seriously_.

Her disguise on the other hand…Raven fingered her newly shorn hair, cut in some sort of choppy, flyaway style Byter insisted was popular among boys her age, and dyed some weird shade of purple that matched her eyes. Vaguely she wondered how Byte could possibly know what was popular among teenage boys seeing as the kid hadn't stepped out of the rip once in over two years.

Still, it had made her look decidedly less feminine, and coupled with the odd fabric Byter had specially engineered to hide her breasts stretched stiffly across her chest, it seemed to do the trick. Byter had given her a lightweight suit to wear under her combat uniform as well, that would minimize her curves and give her a more androgynous look.

Both of the girls agreed that Raven was almost too beautiful to pass for a teenage boy, though, and could only cross their fingers and hope their ruse would fool everyone. Raven had reminded her that people normally only see what they want to see, though, so everything should go fine. A simple cloaking spell would hide her feminine energy from any nosy psychics, but that was all Raven was strong enough to maintain on a daily basis. She was hoping that with the Paladin Institute's famed expert training, she would get better at her magic.

She checked her watch—twenty minutes until pickup. The depot was slowly beginning to populate, students brandishing their new, fifth-year ID cards were starting to trickle into the station. Everyone arrived in their uniforms; apparently they'd had theirs delivered over the winter break. Raven braced herself, forcing a stoic expression as she stared aimlessly in the general direction the bus was supposed to be coming from and hoping no one would bother her.

Naturally, a furry green hand suddenly clamped down on her shoulder, and she gave a quick start, causing the lights in the depot to flicker dangerously. Glaring at whoever interrupted her carefully maintained reverie, she found herself looking into the laughing cat-like eyes of a boy covered in green…fur. It honestly wasn't the oddest thing she'd ever seen, coming from a superheroine school herself, but still. It was some ungodly hour in the morning and anyone would be unnerved if a green furball startled them, or at least, that's what she told herself.

"Dude! Digging the hair!" The boy drawled approvingly, shooting her an infectious fanged grin and gesturing to his own, also green, hair. The only thing on him that  _wasn't_ green was his blue uniform. "So! I've never seen you before around campus. Are you a new student? I'm Garfield, by the way, and you are…Wrrrenn?" He read, squinting at her crest. She moved away, uncomfortable at his scrutiny. "Sorcerer huh? That's pretty cool. We don't have a whole lotta sorcerers at Paladin."

It was far too early in the morning to deal with someone who talked so fast he didn't seem to breathe. Raven blinked at him, unable to talk back, while he answered his own questions even as he asked them. Oblivious to Raven's stunned silence, he continued to chatter happily. "Are those contacts? Or are your eyes just naturally purple? Is it because you're albino? You are pretty pale, huh? I shouldn't be talking though, I'm  _green!_ Hey, I bet you've never seen a  _skinwalker._  Well, you are having the pleasure of standing right in front of Jump City's finest—"

"Would you stop terrorizing the new kid, Gar? First day in a new school must be tough on him." A sympathetic new voice sounded behind the still animatedly talking Garfield and they both looked up, and up, and up into the kind brown…eye…of a boy at least twice their height. He was dark-skinned and handsome, that is, if you didn't count the one red LED eye and mass of lights and blue cybernetic metal parts that made up his body. He extended a mechanical hand to Raven, and she grasped it, shocked at the gesture. There weren't any cyborgs at Bijoux, and she had to admit that she'd never seen someone like him before. Byter would have a field day with him. "You can ignore the furball. I'm Victor, Victor Stone. Pleased to meet your acquaintance." He smiled at her charmingly and she couldn't help but offer a small one in return.

"Wren Lee. Likewise." She replied, surprised that her voice came out calm and steady being the bundle of nerves she was. The tall mechanical boy grinned down at Garfield, ruffling his hair. The pair were obviously good friends, and seemed pretty friendly, if somewhat annoying. Maybe she'd get along here better than she'd thought.

Another arm circled Raven's shoulder unexpectedly, and she squashed the desire to banish whoever snuck up on her next to an alternate dimension. "So, Wren, huh? Interesting name." She glanced at the person holding her captive quickly, not wanting to make eye contact for too long. His energy unsettled her, along with his devilish good looks. He leaned in close, golden eyes dancing with curiosity, obviously noting her discomfort. "I'm Roy. Roy Harper. Welcome to Paladin. So I have to ask…are you the nerdy type? 'Cuz I've been looking for someone to do my homework for me…"

Raven shrugged away from him with a glower cold enough to freeze the fires of hell. Garfield and Victor laughed good-naturedly at their antics. Traitors. Roy continued to stare unnervingly at her, something she couldn't name in his expression. Thankfully though, before he could say anything, they were interrupted by a peal of Garfield's infectious laughter. It was more of a cackle, really, and Raven did not understand why she was fighting a most curious bubble of laughter that was rising in her own throat.

"Uh-oh, here comes Sir Tighty-Whities," Garfield remarked mid-giggle, though not without affection. Another Azure was stiffly making his way towards their little group, and he looked about as peeved as Raven felt. His ice blue eyes were visible even from a few yards away, and they seemed to be trained directly on hers. Victor turned and waved the black-haired teen over, while Raven tried very hard to sink into the floor. She'd recognized 'Sir Tighty-Whities' immediately, and had hoped to avoid him like the plague until senior year. Obviously, all the powers above were conspiring to make this as hard as it could possibly get. Maybe it was some kind of punishment for 'accidentally' kidnapping and leaving Silkie in the kitchens back at Bijoux with the hope they'd turn that infernal creature into stew and serve it to the school's resident alien princess. It probably would taste better than that gourmet mystery soup crap they traditionally served at the end of the semester.

'Sir Tightie-Whities' was none other than the insanely good-looking, talented Richard Grayson, also known to the Justice League as Robin. He'd studied under the tutelage of Batman himself, and since the fact that Bruce Wayne being Batman's alias was an ill-kept secret in superhero society, he was basically the  _son_  of the man who created the Paladin Institute. Robin was able to choose his codename before any of the other students—they were only allowed to choose their codename in fifth-year, a ceremony her grade level was surely looking forward to. Robin was always taken out of school to assist Batman and the JLA on missions when they needed his insanely sharp wit and unparalleled detective skills. Everyone was insanely jealous, including some of the girls at Bijoux, those who wanted to eventually get into the League, anyway. He had a guaranteed place in the League Academy after graduation, a two year course at the satellite HQ. Only the best of the best of graduates at both Bijoux and Paladin were granted this opportunity. Those who passed the course were given honorary places in the Justice League of America. Only two girls from Bijoux had made it to the JLA Academy in Raven's entire time there, and only one made it onto the official team. Paladin had at least three exceptionally talented supers who made it into the Academy each year, and Raven was sure Robin counted himself already part of the League.

Also, Robin was Princess Starfire's current boy toy.

His icy glare hadn't wavered when he made it to where his friends stood, Raven hovering cautiously in their center. She fumbled with the toggles on her jacket under his gaze, trying to remember if he'd ever seen her in the background during Starfire's video chats, or anywhere else for that matter. Why else would he be looking at her like she was one of the very criminals he'd trained all his life to destroy? Did he harbor some kind of hatred for purple-haired transfer students?

He stepped dangerously close to her and shoved her in the chest, causing her to stumble backward and hit Roy's impressively strong chest with a thud. She looked angrily up at Robin, about to break character and go postal, when she noticed he'd shoved a piece of paper into her hands. Odd looks of a mix between shock, understanding and pity crossed the other boys' faces as they noticed this as well; apparently this piece of paper had some kind of significance that did not bode well for Raven.

The paper was worn from being crumpled and uncrumpled countless times, and Raven had to look hard to see what it said. When she did, regret at her decision to infiltrate The Paladin Institute roiled in her gut, and she took a deep breath to keep from losing control.

It was a notice of dorm policy changes, and a list of who was assigned to each room for junior and senior year. Her alias, 'Wren Lee' was printed neatly right next to 'Richard Grayson'.

Apparently, she'd be rooming with the Boy Wonder until graduation.

 


	4. Citrine/ "Caution"

 

* * *

 

"The true genius shudders at incompleteness - and usually prefers silence to saying something which is not everything it should be."

_—Edgar Allan Poe_

* * *

It was if the entire universe had frozen in its tracks, right along with the beating of her heart. Okay, maybe that was an exaggeration, but Raven could barely take a breath under Robin's intense glare.

She tried to reassure herself that as long as she stayed out of his way, everything should go well.

She tried not to think about the fact that his  _detective skills_  were what earned him a spot in the League Academy.

She tried not to think about the possibility that he had  _probably_  done his research on her and that whatever he found was implicating and undoubtedly threatened her safety.

Okay, maybe she was  _really_  exaggerating. If she acted suspicious, then  _obviously_ , he'd have a reason to suspect her. She just had to act as if nothing was wrong, and everything would go smoothly. How would someone who didn't know Robin's entire life story—and wasn't playing a game of life and death with the world's most powerful superhero organization—react if they'd just gotten pushed?

Putting on her most intimidating face, Raven straightened to her full height, taking a step forward and closing the distance between them. She was still a good six inches shorter than him, but it seemed to do the trick. Robin's stare faltered in apparent surprise, and to her satisfaction, he stepped back. It was painfully obvious that he was not used to people standing up to him. "I'm sorry, do I know you? Do we have some sort of problem?" she asked, feigning ignorance even as her heart ran a marathon against her ribcage.

Robin snatched the paper out of her fingers, or at least he, tried to. In her anxiety, she'd been clutching it so tightly her knuckles had turned white as bone, and it ripped right in two. He held the ripped piece of paper in front of her face, and it fluttered in the chilly January breeze.

"Do you really expect me to believe that you don't know who I am?" he asked, with the nerve to sound incredulous. So his adoptive father was the richest man in the country—probably even the world— _and?_  Raven didn't think it justified his being a snob. And she despised snobs. Snobs were the whole reason she left Bijoux in the first place. She only hoped the rest of the 'Paladins' weren't the same. From what she saw of his friends, though, there seemed to be a glimmer of hope.

"I know who you are,  _Dick_. Your name is right there on your blazer." Raven replied dryly, making sure to use his nickname, rather than his self-proclaimed codename. "It just seems as if  _I don't give a fuck_. If we're to be rooming together for the next two years, I suggest you get whatever animosity you have towards me out of your system." Behind her, Roy snickered, muttering something about being extremely brave or extremely foolish, and she made a mental note to deal with him later. Ignoring Robin's gaping mouth and quite  _loud_  feelings of being unjustly accosted, she resisted the urge to snap his mouth shut for him. She gathered her bags and stepped onto the shuttlecraft which had apparently been there for the past five minutes—the driver watching the exchange in amusement. It was probably the most excitement he got out of his boring job ferrying students to and fro, she thought.

Roy quickly boarded after her, taking one of Raven's bags off of her shoulder and offering to carry it for her, much to her dismay. "I'm not an invalid, Roy. I can carry my own luggage." She eyed his lack of luggage, and figured returning students probably had theirs delivered directly to the school. Absentmindedly she wondered if she'd left one glorified private school for a slightly  _more_  glorified one.

"Anyone who stands up to Robin is automatically my new best friend." Roy laughed, as Raven angled towards a seat at the back of the state-of-the-art airborne bus. She could feel cerulean eyes boring into her back as she made her way down the aisle, and she shuddered, certain that she'd just signed her death warrant. She slid into the seat by the window, hoping in vain that the ride would fly by.

To her shock, Roy slid into the seat beside her, and leaned in close to whisper into her ear. Silently she thanked whatever gods there were for the high backed seats blocking them from view because she really didn't want _that_  kind of label on her first day of class. She tried to pull away, but what he whispered to her held her heart in a vice grip. She swore she'd have some kind of heart failure before this year was up.

"So," he'd breathed, his hot breath ghosting across the side of her face,"What is a girl doing in an all boy's school?"

Raven blanched, and she stared at him in horror. She read no ill will in his face or his energy, but…how in the  _nine levels of hell_  did he…? "I-I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about." Raven muttered gruffly, clutching her backpack closer to her chest, and inching closer to the window. Panic like quicksilver shot through her veins, and beads of cold sweat began to trickle down the back of her neck.

Roy sighed, running a hand through his vermilion hair, the tips glinting gold in the light of the rising sun. "It's not like I'm going to tell anyone. You can trust me. Also, for the record, if you want to pass as a boy," he slipped a finger under her bra strap that had slid into view beneath her white button-down shirt and gently lifted it, causing it to make a soft popping sound. "You should really wear a strapless bra."

Raven's face was surely doing an amazing impression of a ripe tomato, and from the insufferable smirk on Roy's face, he'd noticed.

"I have morals, Wren. Obviously if you had to sneak in here, it must be for some important reason. And you don't seem like the villainous type, either." He said quietly, watching her out of the corner of his eye. "We don't have to talk about it now. Whenever you're ready, okay?"

Raven nodded, still unable to respond, but also unable to continue to deny it when they both obviously knew the truth. The only thing she could do was fervently put her trust in this odd boy who was a stranger to her. Did he know that her life, and very likely her freedom, hung in the balance?

* * *

The ride to the school premises, a floating island veiled in thick mist just off the coast of the Jump City harbor, was quick. The shuttlecraft was apparently the school's main form of transportation on and off campus; sleek silver shuttles shot by the windows on a never ending circuit to and from the mainland, some circling the island itself.

Raven found herself forgetting her recent peril and marveling at the view from the window. The island was practically a large, tropical mountain—the contrasting stark whites and blues of the school buildings were built right  _into_  scraggly cliff faces. It beat Bijoux's size by several acres, and Raven counted at least twenty different buildings on this side of the mountain alone. She figured it would take her perhaps a day or so to circle the entire island by foot. More of the flying buses drifted lazily above their heads, ferrying other grade levels to their respective dorms.

The shuttlecraft pulled into a hangar designated just for the fifth-year dormitories. The hangar apparently led straight to the Azure dorm, and was to be their vehicle of choice—for those who couldn't fly, anyway—to get to and from class. As she stepped off of the bus, eager to put as much distance between her and Roy as she could, she found herself feeling a bit disoriented. A strong hand gripping her elbow kept her from falling over, and she looked up into the smiling face of the cyborg, Victor. Roy had apparently disappeared once they'd landed.

"Steady there," he said, not unkindly. "The first ride is always a little weird for newcomers." She half-smiled sheepishly in return, and he reached for her bags, setting them on a nearby conveyor belt. He explained that it scanned the contents for security and delivered the items straight to the rooms.

Raven's heart caught in her throat. Would it find some of her personal… _feminine_ …items a threat to security? She eyed her bags as they rolled under the scanner warily, but no alarms went off, and she breathed a quick sigh of relief.

"Do you need help finding your room, Wren?" Garfield appeared near her shoulder, and the hopeful expression on her face melted her heart, and she couldn't help but nod. Victor apologized for not being able to give her a tour himself—he was needed in the shuttlecraft repairs workshop where he worked part time during the semester. He wished her good luck, pointedly looking at Garfield, before turning away with a wave. Garfield's face visibly brightened at his chance to talk to her alone, and he started chattering away, leading her out of the shuttlecraft airport towards the maze of hallways that led up to their rooms.

According to the furry teen, the suite she shared with Robin was actually the penthouse room, and she was, apparently, "so unbelievably friggin' lucky" she had no idea. Being directly sponsored by Bruce Wayne, Robin practically owned the school, so naturally, he got the nicest digs in the school, regardless of what year he was in. Raven thought that screamed of unfairness, and how their own Batman could be so biased filled her with confusion. Was this place geared to fostering responsible, educated superheroes, or just a place to feed the egos of rich playboys? Robin had never had to share a room until now, Garfield told her, and he wondered aloud how it had happened that a transfer student, out of everyone else, got the chance?

They reached the ocean-themed common room in the Azure dorm, after what seemed like years wandering through hallways as Garfield pointed out every last nook and cranny that had a backstory. Playing on the large flat screen that dominated most of the room was a recording of the head of the Paladin Institute himself. Headmaster Marlon Connors, one of Bruce Wayne's trusted acolytes and liaison to the JLA, was in the middle of giving a welcome speech to all returning and new students. Garfield snickered, directing her attention to the headmaster's unzipped fly. "He always does this. As if we all wanna see his underwear on the first day of school. Sadly, no one ever has the heart to tell him about it."

Raven snorted and averted her eyes from the screen, knowing that she'd never be able to take the headmaster seriously again. Seeing that he'd made her laugh, Garfield grinned brightly. "You thought that was funny? None of the other guys _ever_  think I'm funny! You're a cool dude, Wren, even if your eyes are purple."

Raven rolled her eyes, but decided she liked this Garfield kid, even if he tried too hard to get people to like him. He was just a bit insecure around other guys, she guessed, although she couldn't fathom why. He wasn't bad looking for a furry green guy, and actually had a pretty nice physique, now that she thought about it. He was nowhere near as bulky as Victor, who was built like a tank, but he had the lean, lithe muscles of an athlete. If, maybe, he worked on his  _social skills_ , she was sure he'd have no problem being well-liked.

A cool breeze made the hair on the back of her neck stand at attention, and Raven had the uneasy feeling of being watched seconds before Robin brushed by them and disappeared up the open stairwell in the corner of the common room. Garfield clapped her on the back as if to wish her strength and excused himself, muttering about the hot new professor he had to go lay his 'moves on'.

Resigned, she accepted the daunting challenge ahead of her, and climbed the steps to the second floor. To her disappointment, there were only more halls, crowded with other Azures, and she had to dodge and weave to catch up with Robin. She hurried after him, making sure to keep a distance of at least three yards between her and the infuriated teenager. If he wanted space, he'd have it; she had no qualms with that, regardless of her actions earlier.

Also, she didn't want him to think she was some kind of psycho stalker fanboy.

At the end of the hall, he abruptly stopped, and if she hadn't been paying attention, she'd have gone careening into his broad back. He looked as if he were about to turn around but didn't, and turned the corner, this time walking at a faster pace.

 _What the hell is he playing at?_ She wondered irritatedly as she pushed past loitering juniors. A laser beam narrowly missed her face, searing a bit of her hair, and the idiot who'd thrown it called a half-assed apology. She accidentally stepped on someone's tail, and its very orange, and very reptilian owner snarled at her, revealing rows and rows of jagged teeth. A growl and a flash of angry red eyes quickly shut him up though, and he let her pass.

She doubled her efforts to catch up to him as he darted left, into one hall, then quickly turned another corner. By the time he stopped, Raven was almost completely out of breath, almost bent over in an effort to regulate her breathing. She didn't even care if he knew she was following her. Hell, when she got her breath back she was going to kick him a new one.

When she finally straightened, she found that he had turned to face her, and that they were in a deserted hallway lined with windows looking out on the island, and a large staircase leading—hopefully—up to the goddamned penthouse. At least he looked almost as out of breath as she was.

"Why in the hell are you following me?!" he exclaimed, and she almost laughed outright in incredulity. He had the nerve to actually look confused!

"Why…in the world…do you  _think_ …I'm following you?" She spoke slowly, as if speaking to a toddler. "I had no idea the Boy Wonder had such a faulty memory." At his blank look, she shook her head in wonder. "I'm your roommate? Wren Lee?"

A myriad of expressions crossed Robin's face in a split second, and it dawned on her that he never really expected that she would go through with the order. It was obvious he thought her a mindless sheep like everyone else who doted on him—even after everything that had transpired that morning—and that she'd obediently request to change rooms. It had probably never occurred to him that she'd be so daring—no one ever  _was—_ and she sensed that he didn't have a clue on how to handle that.

He at least had the decency to look uncomfortable, lessening Raven's dislike for him somewhat. "I'm…" he started, struggling to find the right words. "I'm not as bad as you think I am." At her raised eyebrows, he sighed in defeat, but continued resolutely. "I'm sorry for this morning and just now, but…simply put, I don't trust you, man. The other guys don't really care who they let into our little gang and something…happened before…because of that."

"I never asked for you to trust me, Robin," Raven replied, unsure how to take this confession. It certainly painted a different picture of him in her mind—something a little more vulnerable than his attitude suggested. What it didn't do, though, was explain why he was so opposed to sharing a room with her. She understood that he was a born leader, and that he was being the 'alpha male' and 'protecting his pack' but that didn't magically give him special privileges. "I came here to learn and better myself here, just like you. I'm sorry that I'm invading your personal space, but it's not my choice and I'd prefer it if we didn't spend these our last two years fighting like sissies."

Robin couldn't fight with her logic, and had always felt secretly guilty at how the entire school seemed to treat him. He wouldn't lie and say that their complaisance didn't please him on some level, and that he didn't become accustomed to it over the years. He  _was_  being selfish and unjust, and  _Wren_  was causing all of those unpleasant feelings to rise up again.

Raven could see and feel the internal dialogue going on inside the inky-haired teen's mind. He was projecting his feelings so strongly she could practically read his thoughts. She relaxed on the inside, relieved that his antagonism towards her was not founded on her shady background, and maybe, just maybe, she wouldn't die of a heart attack anytime soon. While she and Robin wouldn't be the absolute best of friends, she could feel the tentative birth of a truce.

Wordlessly, Robin stepped aside, gesturing to the steps and allowing her access to their shared penthouse suite.

Without warning, Raven felt the familiar stirrings of panic rise in her breast as she remembered something. In all of the chaos, and careful planning with Byter, she never gave a thought to how she would possibly handle rooming with a guy! She was not prepared in the slightest, having lived among females for as long as she could remember. What if he walked around naked or something? What if getting naked and lounging around together in  _communal showers_  was some sort of teenage male bonding ritual that she was _expected to partake in_? Raven half-considered turning right back around and running with her tail tucked between her legs right back to Bijoux where it was safe, and she didn't have to worry about potentially being scarred for life.

She briefly glanced out of the corner of her eye at Robin, trying to get her wild, frantic thoughts under control as the windows behind them trembled in their frames. He seemed nonchalant enough, and held open the door for her politely as they entered the suite.

It was almost enough to make her completely forget about sharing her privacy with him. The penthouse was utterly beautiful, furnished with minimalistic dark mahogany wood, soft whites and deep blacks, far more grand than her old two-person suite in her old school. Raven figured with the size of the penthouse, even if  _Starfire_  was her roommate and demanded that she sleep in the walk-in closet, Raven wouldn't have minded a bit.

Robin noticed her impressed expression, and he cleared his throat softly. "I-its like this in all of the suites, really." Yeah,  _sure,_ it was. Raven had a really hard time believing that the other suites looked like  _this._ There was a reason everyone on campus was insanely jealous of his living quarters.

The suite had an impossibly ceiling and the entire far wall was a window, and through it, Raven could see the entire left side of the island school. A small staircase led up to a second story loft with a balcony that overlooked the rest of the penthouse. A couple comfy-looking sofas and open video game cases surrounded a large television in the center of the room, and under the loft was a bedroom area: a king sized bed with mussed down covers was backed against the window, and a large mahogany desk housed a blinking, thirty-inch computer monitor. A cork board filled the entire six-foot wall under the loft and it was covered in newspaper clippings, criminal files, and maps filled with little red circles and dotted with thumbtacks.

A relatively small—compared to the rest of the room anyway—kitchenette with a french door fridge and fully functional stove lined the wall behind the living area, and next to the stairs to the loft was a door that probably led to the _private bathroom_. That's right, it was a door to the  _bathroom_ , which meant  _no communal showers_!

Raven vaguely heard Robin talking in the background, saying something about the rules and his everyday routine that she'd do best to follow, but she'd tuned him out. She'd made her way up to the loft that was just as lushly furnished as the bedroom below it, only without the cork board and creepily leering faces of criminals. Immediately she fell utterly, irrevocably in love, her hatred of all things  _bourgeois_ be damned. She levitated her bags from where they sat by the door, and was about to unpack on her new queen-sized bed when Robin grabbed her arm, jerked her around, and demanded her attention.

"Dude, are you even  _listening_ to anything I'm  _saying?_! I was _saying, I_ get the loft!" he exclaimed, tossing her bags over the balcony and letting them crash to the floor below.

Maybe it was the way he grabbed her arm so suddenly, or maybe it was the throbbing pain she felt from his impossibly strong fingers closing around her elbow. Maybe it was the way he threw her bags, or maybe it was the fact that the bedroom under the loft was  _obviously_  his and he was just being difficult. Or  _maybe, just maybe_  it was because her unstable emotions had been running haywire all day without release. Whatever it was, something in Raven  _snapped._

Before the Boy Wonder could even  _blink_ , she had him pinned against the wall, her small white palm pressed against his lips, effectively silencing him. Her normally clear violet irises slowly darkened to an ominous, radiant crimson as she leaned in to his ear. " _I am not your loyal subject,"_ she hissed, some wicked part of her delighting in the sour, sharp tang of his fear rising in the air, "I will do as I  _please_  because this is  _my room too_ and I was  _up here first._ I am not here to cater to you like a  _fucking infant_  so suck up your damn control complex and we will get along.  _Just. Fine._ "

She enjoyed him squirm angrily for a few more seconds as he tried futilely to free himself from her inhuman grip. The way his blood was pumping hotly in his veins called to some primal emotion buried deep inside her psyche. To her horror, she found she had to physically stop herself from drawing close to where his heart pounded out a rhythm in the tender skin of his neck. She dropped her hands from him like he was on fire and descended the stairs to her bags. She threw them back over the balcony—not caring if one of them hit his surely frozen form. Unsure of where to go next, she calmly waltzed into the bathroom and locked the door as if that had been her intention all along, and not that she was shaken and fleeing from a potentially disastrous situation.


	5. Emerald/ "Discord"

 

* * *

 

"I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity."

  
_—Edgar Allan Poe,_ Letter to an Admirer

 

* * *

Robin found that he was having trouble breathing. His hand absently went for his pocket where he used to keep his inhaler, cursing when he remembered that he'd thrown it away in a fit of rebelliousness years ago. He was really… _off_  today, he realized. He hadn't used the pump since he was ten, and hadn't ever needed to until this day.

None of the villains, friends, or sparring partners he'd ever fought had ever,  _ever_  managed to get  _completely_  under his armor like that. Wren had done what no criminal ever managed to do to Robin in the span of two minutes. That the shorter boy had some other terrifying personality hidden beneath the guise of a reserved, solemn, and somewhat nerdy transfer student was unsettling to Robin, and he couldn't seem to shake the experience from his mind.

Robin liked to believe that he wasn't afraid of anything. This was one of those experiences he'd later explain away to himself in a way that made sense. For example; he had been temporarily caught off guard by his flippancy, is all. The shorter, obviously inhuman, boy had exploited that in his brief moment of weakness.

Still, there was this annoying, _nagging_  sensation tugging at the back of Robin's mind as he struggled to catch his breath. He couldn't place the feeling, and it bothered him. His detective's curiosity got his brain whirring; he was determined to figure out why Wren was single-handedly throwing him off of his carefully maintained and structured balance.

Wren had been perplexing Robin since he'd first gotten in his face back at the bus depot. Robin hadn't known exactly why at the time, and blamed it on his sense of injustice that he'd have to share his prized 'man lair' of five years with someone else, and a transfer student he  _didn't even trust_  at that. While it was all well and good to assume that—being a very plausible explanation and all—what was  _really_  perplexing Robin was that Wren was more… _complex_  than the people he normally surrounded himself with.

He wasn't a "what you see is what you get" kind of guy and  _that_  was what was upsetting the borderline-obsessive detective in Robin. He was a  _detective—_ he had trained and  _prided_ himself on being able to read people easily and he was almost never wrong. Somehow, though, he had managed to read the purple-haired transfer student completely, absolutely _,_ one hundred percent  _wrong_.

Robin had judged Wren based on appearance alone, and that had been his  _first_  mistake. Wren was small-boned and small…well small  _everything_. Small hands, petite, upturned nose, far too dainty pointed chin. His mouth was always somewhat pouty, with lips far too full and far too similar to the color freshly crushed cherries. His skin was far too fair and his eyes were far too luminously violet and sparkled with hidden humor far too often even though he was usually looking at the floor or staring aimlessly. His purple hair was far too soft-looking, and Robin did  _not_  unconsciously want to touch it.

Everything about Wren's appearance had screamed shy, strange, weak, and introverted. He'd assumed that Wren was one-sided and single-minded, much like many of the criminals he'd researched and destroyed in the past. He, for all intents and purposes, seemed like someone who lacked courage and strength of will, and Robin had acted accordingly, and that had been his  _second_  mistake.

 _No, no, no,_ Robin thought to himself, dragging a sweaty hand through his shaggy raven hair,  _You know that's not it._  He couldn't lie to himself. Denial was the first sign of insanity. And Robin was  _not_ going insane.

He knew that simply misjudging Wren and being caught off guard wasn't the whole reason his world was spinning wildly off of its axis. What was  _really_  bothering him was even more alarming than letting himself be pinned to the wall by a far too pretty boy half a foot shorter and a hundred pounds lighter than him and damn near having asthma attack.

There had been an inexplicable emotion that surfaced in him when Wren had him pinned against the wall. This emotion had been so forceful it had sent his blood racing and had his throbbing heart threatening to break his ribs. Every bone in his body had ached to  _dominate_ Wren, to overpower him, throw him down, and assert his…manhood? Robin closed his eyes. He did  _not_  like where that train of thought was going.

It was a perfectly normal, basic,  _primal_  instinct to want to assert his domination over a weaker male when threatened, he told himself as he finally made his way down to the area under the loft and collapsed facedown onto the bed. The other option was far too terrifying to entertain.

* * *

Raven solemnly counted to one thousand as her emotions reluctantly simmered down. Once she reached around five hundred, the lights in the bathroom had stopped flickering. She took deep breaths, in, and out, to ground herself, and stared at the crimson-eyed personification of her depravity that glared back.

 _He got what he deserved, Other_ Raven told her with a smirk.

Raven didn't often lose control of her more… _carnal_  side…as much as she did today, and She was obviously thrilled at being let out of Her metaphoric cage. The last time  _Other_  Raven emerged was early fourth year when one of the professors had been improper with one of the students, and She'd gone postal.

Raven had thought she'd been doing a good job keeping Her under wraps, but she could see that she was mistaken. Something about this school had brought Her boiling just beneath the surface of her skin, and she could feel  _Other_ Raven waiting for blissful release.

The problem was, She was never satisfied with a simple urges like petty theft—which Raven had never given in to, by the way. Angry words didn't sate  _Other_ Raven, nor did telling boldfaced lies appease Her in the slightest. It always seemed as if Raven had to either commit borderline homicide or go into meditation for a week before her inner devil burrowed herself back in the deep recesses of her mind.

Now she'd have to be even  _more_  careful. It seemed like the slightest slip could potentially release her inner hellion;  _Other_  Raven would not rest until She saw blood.

Her four-eyed reflection grinned like they shared some diabolical secret and leaned out of the mirror, Her voice a snakelike hiss.  _There's another option, and you know it._

Raven closed her eyes, blocking out the image of the grinning demon. "That other option is completely impossible in my current situation," she whispered to her wicked mirror image.

 _That hot Roy would fuck you in a heartbeat, I bet. Other_  Raven leaned in close, nose to nose with Her Host.  _Don't you want me to go back to my little jail cell? I might even sleep for months if you'd just let me have Robin. Hell, I'd sleep for a year if we can manage_ that.

 _"_ Shut  _up_. Leave me alone," Raven pleaded, refusing to open her eyes and acknowledge  _Other_ Raven's suggestions.

 _Don't lie to yourself, Raven, you know you enjoyed that little debacle. Think of the fun we'd have if you'd just drop your damn barriers and go_ all _the way._

Raven began to chant the expulsion spell Phaesya taught her, but her heart wasn't in it.  _Other_  Raven could tell—they were the same person after all—and the demon chuckled darkly.

 _Other_ Raven liked when Raven lied to others, but as menacing as She was, She couldn't physically lie to her own  _Host_. Her words were true; Raven  _had_ felt some kind of perverse pleasure when she'd pressed herself on Robin, but it wasn't like it was some novel occurrence. She was a human girl, or part human, anyway, and any human girl would be…attracted to a well-built guy with nice…arms.

Now, why she felt attracted while she was about to  _eat out his throat_  was a completely different story that she wasn't going to try and figure out right now. With renewed energy she chanted, and her reflection sneered at her one more time before reluctantly returning to normal.

A knock on the door startled her, and she swore blackly before realizing that she'd been in the bathroom for the better part of an hour. "Y-yes?"

"Is…is everything okay in there? I-I thought I…heard voices?" came Robin's uncertain reply.

"Just…talking to myself…" she called back, wanting to kick herself for the idiotic response. When she felt his footsteps wander away, she took one last deep breath and left the bathroom.

Apparently her roommate thought that her being in the bathroom talking to herself signified 'get naked time', for he was relaxing shirtless on his bed reading a magazine. Raven knew she shouldn't be getting all worked up over a bare chest, as she was attending an  _all-boy's school_  for goodness' sake and really needed to get used to seeing male bodies. Also, and probably more importantly, showing weakness at something this minor would give  _Other_ Raven an excuse to taunt her all the more.

Mentally, she told herself this. But, but,  _but_. There was just  _something_  about the intimacy of sharing a room, or perhaps the cozy heat being pushed up through the thermostat that robbed her of the ability to view his tanned, lean,  _sculpted_  muscles objectively and, to her absolute horror, she found herself frozen, struck dumb and immobile.

Robin seemed to feel her doe-in-headlights gaze on him and looked up at her, then down at himself to see if he'd accidentally spilled the bottle of Power-ade that was dangling precariously from his other hand. The second he looked down, Raven took the opportunity to flee into the loft.

Well.  _That_ was a nightmare. How was she going to get a hold of herself?

Something vibrated on her butt and Raven jumped up from where she rested on the bed, guns blazing, when she realized that it was just the communication device Byter gave her so that they could stay in contact. The communicator looked just like a normal smartphone, and could make calls and play games and all that jazz, but the difference was that it was made of the same magic and technology as Byter's workshop. Meaning, it would function normally as a phone if anyone other than Raven picked it up, but they would not be able to call Byter, nor would they see or hear it if the little blonde tinker was calling and Raven wasn't around to pick up.

"Brooke." Raven said into the phone, using the codename that signified that there was a chance she'd be overheard.

"Hey big sis, how's your first day going?" Byter replied, a snicker apparent in her voice. They both knew that not even a blind person would mistake them for siblings. Byter's bright blonde hair and blue eyes, and Raven's darkly exotic features were a dead giveaway.

"It's going alright. Class starts tomorrow." Raven bit her lip, trying to decide whether or not she should tell her about Roy. In the end, she figured what could it hurt? Regardless of Byter's youthful looks, she was usually the source of a lot of wisdom when Raven found she had problems she couldn't speak to anyone else about. Not that she would ever admit it to the shorter girl. "I lost a pencil," she said calmly, using the code that meant her ruse had been discovered.

"WHAT? HOW? Okay, don't answer that. Did you lose  _all_  of your pencils?"

"No, just one. And I don't think, I don't think it was an important pencil." She hoped Byter got the gist of what she was implying—that she didn't think Roy would be much of a threat or at least, that she didn't think he'd be. The Justice League hadn't come breaking down the door and dragging her to an interrogation room yet, so that was good.

Someone chose to knock on the door at that exact moment, and Raven's heart nearly fell out of her mouth. It wasn't the Justice League, of course, but who could blame her for being on edge?

"I came to give Wren the tour," said a familiar voice when Robin let him in, making Raven quickly disconnect the call and scramble over to the balcony. Roy glanced up and they locked eyes, electric gold warring with blazing violet. The air between them damn near started vibrating from the intensity of their gaze as they silently challenged each other to a very serious blinking contest, until even Robin looked up at her in curiosity.

"What is going on with you two?" he asked, and before Roy could say something incriminating, Raven cut him off by loudly hopping down the stairs, two at a time.

"Nothing. I just forgot about the tour, that's all." She quickly grabbed her coat and ushered Roy back out into the hallway, not sparing still-shirtless Robin a second glance.

They walked in a very uncomfortable silence as Roy led her through the dorm. Raven did not ask where they were going, afraid of what his answer could be.

Eventually they were outside and he led her along a railed path beaten into a surprisingly snowy hillside, shaded by evergreens and live oaks that seemed to stretch higher than the mountain itself. Raven felt herself begin to calm down, just a bit. She asked Roy about the snow, and learned that certain parts of the mountain were on different seasonal schedules. The side of the mountain they'd seen on arrival was obviously the summer side. Winter on this side island was not like Winter in the city; it was serene and white and peaceful, while back at Jump, an obnoxious car honk would sound every two seconds while its tires splashed gray and yellow slush everywhere. She was sure that if she stayed out here past sunset, the stars would appear bright and unobscured by the smog and light pollution of the city, and the snow would shine like a white ocean in the moonlight.

They finally stopped walking once they reached an ancient-looking stone platform overlooking a courtyard where bored-looking students milled about and started fights with one another. Raven fancied that if she squinted hard enough to the west, she'd see the cherry blossoms on the border of Spring.

"Okay, nature girl, I'm listening." Roy stepped up beside her, and she blushed, embarrassed that he'd caught her gawking at the scenery.

"Do you not get cold?" she asked, ignoring his implied question and noting his lack of a coat as he leaned on the stone railing. It was very hard to not stare at the rippling tendons in his arms as he moved, and it was annoying since he probably knew she was doing it.  _Stop being a ninny, Raven._

"I'm a hot blooded predator," he answered with a smirk, and she rolled her eyes. "Don't try and change the subject, Wren. You being so secretive is really making me wonder about your motives." His voice had turned grave, and although he was still smiling, something in his eyes had turned serious and deadly, and she was reminded again of just how dangerous the ground she treaded actually was.

"It's Raven. My name is Raven." She relented, and he gave her a slow nod of encouragement, gesturing for her to continue. "I came because I need answers and training, and this school is the only place that can give both."

"There is an all-girl school back in Jump," Roy replied, his tone skeptical, "Why didn't you just attend that one?"

"You don't understand, Roy. I  _did_." Raven leaned on the rail beside him, their elbows nearly touching. "That school is a joke, and it's being bought out by people who only care about titles and fame. All of our best professors left, some even came here,"—she was fervently hoping none of them would recognize her— "They don't even teach physical training anymore. I've completely forgotten how to hold a bow, much less hit a target."

Roy mulled this over beside her, absently tugging a lock of his titian hair.

"Also…" she lowered her voice, in case anyone was listening, "I can't remember anything from before I turned thirteen. I don't know who I was, who I lived with, who my parents were, or even what I  _am_. Something is supposed to happen on my eighteenth birthday, but the person who told me that disappeared and I don't even know where  _she_  is!"

The odd look on Roy's face and warm hand on her arm gave her pause and she noticed belatedly that her voice had been increasing in volume with every sentence, and that the stone overhang was slightly trembling. She covered her crumpled face in her hands, pretending she was trying to get warm when she truly just didn't want Roy to see how emotional this was making her. Raven  _hated_  being emotional. She'd never showed that part of herself to someone before, and she wasn't about to start now.

Roy was not convinced in the slightest, and he placed a comforting hand on her back. "You are very brave, Raven. I don't know if I could dress up as a girl and…wait a second. Do you guys have like…communal showers?"

Raven couldn't stop the startled laugh that escaped, and she looked down at her hands, alarmed. It was as if her body didn't know how to obey her anymore. She looked at Roy, startled to see a bright grin on his face, as if the mayor himself had just handed him the keys to the city or, knowing Roy, a truckload of high-class prostitutes.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"You  _laughed_. It was like the sun breaking through storm clouds." He sighed theatrically, a hand to his heart, "Oh,  _would_  that I could hear that melodious sound again!"

She fixed him with her best withering glare, but he just grinned back, obviously not threatened.

"I may not have any freaky psychic powers to read your mind or anything," Roy shrugged at her offended expression and she turned her head to stare in the opposite direction, pointedly ignoring him. He reached around her, gently tugging her chin to face him so that she could read the honesty in his eyes. "…But from the the moment I saw you stand up to Robin, I just  _knew_  that there was something a little amazing about you. I like your gut, Raven, and you can trust me to keep your secret. I promise that I'll help you."

Raven had that dizzying sense of vertigo in her belly that she always felt in dreams where she was falling—endlessly, hopelessly spiraling—towards a ground that was thousands of miles away. Her heart was doing some sort of crazed animalistic pounding at her breast, and for once, she had no biting retort to deflect his attention from her speechlessness. "Thank you," she said stiffly, painfully keeping her face a blank mask as he released her chin and pushed off of the rail, stretching languidly before gesturing for her to follow him.

"Don't thank me," he called over his shoulder as he sauntered back towards the way they came. "I'm only doing it to get in your pants."


	6. Sapphire/ "Vision"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You might want to read the little Raven's Emotions blurb I have posted on ff.net (link below) in the respective chapter. It gives a bit more insight to the way the chapters are named, and why I decided to veer away from canon in this particular area. Enjoy!

* * *

"Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;"

  
_—Edgar Allan Poe,_ The Raven

* * *

All jokes aside, Roy was helping Raven for more… _selfish_  reasons than he let on.

Sure, he was attracted to her. Raven was obviously strikingly beautiful—even dressed as a man. And sure, the girl had  _some kind of spunk_ to crossdress and infiltrate one of the most heavily guarded and warded institutions in the country. But Roy had to admit, at least to himself, that he was mainly looking out for his own best interests when he swore to help her.

He just didn't understand. Raven had put herself into an  _extremely_ precarious situation, and for what reason? To find parents that probably didn't give two rats' asses about her? He'd personally stopped searching for his own mother long ago—it was obvious that she didn't want to have anything to do with him. It just wasn't worth the repercussions that would arise in the event that her secret was uncovered—she was  _vastly_  underestimating Robin's detective skills. He didn't even want to think about what the self-proclaimed Boy Wonder would do to them—most importantly, to  _him,_  when he found out, and he  _would_  most definitely find out. There was no doubt in Roy's mind about that. It was only a matter of time. He'd have to do his best to help Raven get answers and get out before the shit hit the fan.

Roy and Robin's relationship had been borne out of conflict, as relationships seemed to do quite often around the always brooding teen. It had been first year, and the two had been paired in archery class together to complete the famed 'William Tellian' Exam. As the name suggested, the student was to successfully shoot a target directly above their partner's head. They'd been paired together and Robin had raised a royal ruckus, screaming that he'd surely shoot him in the head and just how would they explain that to  _the_ Bruce _Wayne?_  While the staff fluttered around him like worried hummingbirds, uncertain and fearing for their jobs that would surely be lost if they upset their founder's adopted son, Roy had nocked an arrow and pinned the little bird's hand to the target center. Apparently they'd all forgotten that it was his unparalleled archery skills that had landed Roy at Paladin in the first place.

The arrow had sliced cleanly through the center of Robin's palm, narrowly missing bone and his ulnar artery. It was that and the fact that the Head Nurse and the professor in charge secretly sided with Roy that he didn't get expelled immediately. Instead, he was forced to sit with Robin every day for the week he had to spend there (though it was more for Robin's wounded pride than his healing hand). The two had begrudgingly accepted each other's friendship when Roy brought him crime graphic novels to read. Over the years their bond had grown into more of a brotherhood than simple friendship, and Roy could not imagine ever intentionally hurting Robin.

So, call it self-preservation, if you will. A trait that the poor, unsuspecting Raven obviously  _lacked_. He glanced back at her, noticing the stifled grace to her walk, eyes trained on the ground in front of her, no doubt lost in thought. He found himself imagining what she would be like as her normal self, undisguised, but before he could get too far, she looked up, and his concentration broke. He turned forward, reminding himself that he did not want to know her. The less he knew about her, the easier it would be to send her out of the school and out of their lives when this was through.

* * *

A wary eye was all Wren got from Robin when he reentered the suite later that night. He was too tired to survive another fight, he wasn't sure that he'd be able to control himself if the strange purple-headed boy instigated something. He was grateful though, when Wren quietly made himself a mug of tea and disappeared back into the loft without a sound.

Robin knew without a shadow of a doubt that he'd heard voices in the bathroom earlier, and had given the bathroom a thorough once-over the minute Wren had left. No one was in the shower stall or hiding beneath the kitchen sink, which unnerved him all the more. It could be possible that conversing with invisible beings was one of the quirks that came with Wren being non-human, but nevertheless, Robin had the distinct feeling his life was being flipped upside down and that he was powerless to stop or control it.

However, Robin was not about to accept that he might be losing control of everything. To demonstrate to himself that he was, in fact, in complete and total command over his life, he accessed the suite's light control via his computer and plunged the loft into darkness.

He didn't even try to hide the smugness from the "Sorry, ten o'clock means light's out!" he called in response to Wren's surprised cry of outrage.  _Yep_ , he thought,  _I'm still in control_.

* * *

_Three Weeks Later_

* * *

"Hey Wren, the game's about to start, aren't you coming down?"

Raven looked up from her  _Caster Magick and Meditations_ textbook, irritated at the interruption. The loft was supposed to be her quiet sanctuary, as Robin avoided it like the plague and as it was set apart from the rest of the room. Unfortunately, like today, the suite would get noisy, and she could barely concentrate. This was the third time someone had interrupted her about something that was happening on Robin's large TV, something Raven figured she'd probably need to know about to keep up appearances but couldn't be bothered with right now. She didn't know how much longer she could keep her anger under control.

Slightly shaking with the effort to keep her anger in check, she held up her textbook and put on her best _'I wish I could join you but homework I wish I didn't have to do is kicking my ass'_ face. The green-furred Garfield visibly deflated, and she winced inwardly. "Sorry, man," she said sincerely, the phrase now falling with ease after living among pure, unadulterated testosterone for three weeks, "I'll catch up on the scores when I'm done. Go, Jump City Tigers?"

At that, Garfield's pointed ears perked, and he flashed her a reassuring nod and a fist pump before hopping back down the stairs, new purpose in his step. His eagerness to please was annoying sometimes, but it was really beginning to win her over. Really, the whole group—sans Robin—was slowly winding its way into her heart, though she was loathe to admit it. She was not allowed to have personal attachments.

Regardless, as soon as Garfield made it down the steps, she quickly charmed the loft. " _Quiesco*."_

A rush of pride brought a smile to her face when the noises from below were drowned out as the charm began to work. Her  _Caster Magick_  professor had noticed that she was particularly gifted in spells and charms, and had given her the advanced textbook she now cradled as a gift. She'd taken no time to devour its teachings, reveling in the heady feeling of excitement she got whenever she cast a new charm and it actually worked. Spells and charms had the tendency of going horribly awry whenever she casted them.

Raven wasn't really the type to become overly excited about anything, but her special assignment today had her nearly bouncing on her toes all day until classes were over and she was eager to get started. The project was to find her own incantation, something crucial to anyone who could wield magic. Regular spells were just formulaic enchantments that took their magic from ingredients instead of the actual magic ability of the spellcaster. Incantations and charms drew their power from the very  _core_  of a sorcerer's being, making them that much more powerful.

If she could successfully find her personal incantation, not only would she have better control over her abilities, she'd be able to perform even greater magic than she was currently capable of. Her Physical Defense grades were hilariously dismal—she could barely levitate  _herself_ five inches off of the ground let alone levitate a nearby object. Hand-to-hand combat was made extremely difficult as she was more occupied with keeping her bindings in place and making sure her opponent didn't accidentally touch something they shouldn't. Being able to more skillfully control her magic would allow her to stay a safe distance away from her attacker and still deal maximum damage.

At this rate, there was no doubt she'd be assigned to Team Squint*, the school's affectionate name for the physically unfit group of kids who couldn't pass the Winter Quarter Defense exams. Team Squint would be confined to the campus during Spring Quarter to do research, healing, and intel work while the remaining students were assigned to teams and flown out to cities like Gotham, Jump, Bludhaven, and Metropolis to fight crime and help the police force solve cases. The six students with the highest grades in the Defense, Investigative, and Criminology Exams would be sent to Gotham, and Raven was aiming to be assigned to that team. The one thing she did know about her childhood before Bijoux was that it had occurred in Gotham, and if she wanted to find answers, Gotham was without a doubt the place to start.

 _Be prepared,_  her textbook read.  _So far, you may have only reached the sixth level of meditation. In this lesson, you will be accessing the seventh and most important chakra, the chakra of pure consciousness. This chakra holds your incantation, and it is your goal to retrieve it. As you approach the seventh chakra, some of you will be faced with extreme surprising and strange imagery. You must not be afraid, though, as it is simply your defense system. You must remember that your own will is impervious to anything it can conjure, and once you have demonstrated that, it will deem you ready to access your incantation and it will reveal itself to you._

 _It might take an hour, it may even take_ days _; it is_ extremely _important to keep your wits about you and keep your will strong. The weak-willed are never able to access their incantations, especially if their intentions are dishonorable, and most eventually become instruments of the Darkness. Do not become discouraged, and if you remember nothing else, always remember the following two things: all who wield magic have the responsibility to use it to protect those who cannot protect themselves, even if it costs your life, and that no evil is honorable: but death is honorable; therefore death is not evil.*_

 _How reassuring,_  Raven thought, and closed her eyes. She sank deep past her first six chakras, digging farther into her psyche than she'd ever dared to before. After a while, she was looking over the edge of a stone cliff, a cliff so high that all she could see below was a dense, gray mist. In all of her previous meditations, she'd always stop and wake herself at this point. She had never thought to go further, and her powers were usually manageable after this. Obviously, to access her seventh chakra, she would have to go further than this. Her only option at this point lay beyond the depths below, which was ironic, seeing as the seventh chakra was supposed to be  _above_  her head, not  _below_. Taking a deep breath to brace herself, she silenced her doubts and dived off of the edge.

Vaguely, she noticed that she  _descended_ rather than  _fell._ This was a practiced and controlled  _dive_ compared to the violent, spiraling  _plummets_  that frequented her nightmares, and this knowledge fueled her confidence. She let herself pick up speed as the wind shrieked, violently whipping her hair about her face. She sliced through the dense fog like a knife, and it broke, revealing a jet black ocean that sped towards her, stretching into infinity on either side. Its angry-looking waves tossed and turned, standing out in stark contrast to the gray, foggy gloom of her inner mind. Irrational fears of drowning and certain death threatened to break her concentration, but she had been trained all Quarter for this moment. She closed her eyes as the ocean lurched up, swallowing her whole and not leaving so much as a splash to mark her entrance.

The water was frigid, seeping into her bones and locking up her limbs. Her fear rose once again as she struggled without air and she flailed helplessly for a moment. Bravely, she willed herself to stop struggling and to let the ocean's currents take her wherever they chose. As soon as she stilled, her instinct to breathe evaporated, and the ocean no longer felt threatening. After what seemed like an eternity, she felt rough sand beneath her feet, and her head broke the water when she found she could stand. She dragged herself ashore, grateful for the steady, stony ground beneath the skin of her palms.

She looked up, finding herself at the bottom of a vast, bleak, rocky valley. The starless sky was the same inky black as the ocean behind her, and they seamlessly blended until she could not tell where one left off and the other began. The entire valley was somehow lit with an ethereal light and showed no signs of life, either human, flora or faun. A deep hum vibrated under her skin, and Raven grew uneasy.

"Hello?" she called, her voice echoing across the giant stones that marked a path before her, and as if in answer, a strong wind picked up, sending the pebbles on the ground around her swirling. It pushed against her back, and she stumbled to her feet. "No need to be so pushy," she grumbled, and the wind blew harder in return.

Following the path, Raven eventually found herself in a clearing that featured a circle of large, misshapen boulders in its center. Once she stepped inside the circle for a closer look, however, she realized with a blush that they weren't _boulders_  at all. She was actually surrounded by six* different stone versions of herself, _naked_ , and detailed all the way down to the crescent-shaped birthmark on her inner thigh _._ Each of them had a different expression, as well—one grinned defiantly back at her, hands on her hips in a defensive stance, while her neighbor was hunched forward, arms shielding her nakedness as she peered warily up at Raven through thick eyelashes.

Another Raven had her hands clasped in front of her, an expression of warm delight transforming her features, while to the right of her, another version of Raven held a large book, and looked disapprovingly at the other statues.

An odd feeling between her shoulder blades made Raven turn, and she found herself face to face with the final two statues. Their expressions could not be more different, and yet their arms were linked. One statue was none other than  _Other_  Raven herself, her four eyes narrowed in a permanent glower, and her free hand balled into a fist at her side. The other wore a serene expression, and beckoned with an outstretched hand. Belatedly, it dawned on her that these statues were personifications of her own emotions, visual renderings of the feelings she so painstakingly kept under lock and key.

An urge rose in her then, compelling her to acknowledge them once and for all. Obviously this was a test. It made sense, in a way. She'd always known that her deepest fear was that she'd hurt or kill someone whenever her powers spiraled out of control, but it wasn't her powers that she feared. Her emotions were the roots of it all. They were what fueled her powers, and spiked out of control the most whenever she experienced strong feelings of anger or fear. It was also then that her empathy would grow out of control and she was vulnerable to the oppressive, chaotic feelings of those around her.

And so until now, Raven had tried to live her life as emotionlessly as it was possible, not allowing herself to get too angry, or to make friends, experience happiness for too long or to ever, ever admit her fear under any circumstance. Of course, she had made mistakes along the way, like befriending Byter and sneaking into Paladin for instance.

Now, almost as if it were payback, she had to acknowledge the very root of her fear. The statues seemed to wait, expectant, and the enormity of it all nearly crushed her willpower, and she backed into the pedestal of one of the statues. Strength instantly flooded through her, and she realized that she was leaning on the Raven with the defiant grin. "Courage." she whispered, the name slipping from her mouth easily, and the stone figure warmed in response. "You…give me my willpower and the bravery to be honest, and I…acknowledge you." A soft green light started to pulse from within the stone, and Raven knew she had to continue.

"Fear," she touched the hand of the statue to her right, and the stone glowed yellow. "You give me both my modesty and sense of danger, but I am not afraid to acknowledge you."

"Compassion, you give me the gift of kindness and empathy, and through these I have happiness. I acknowledge you."

As Compassion glowed blue-violet, she turned to the book-wielding Raven with a frown. This one was hard. The book the statue held was misleading, and her first thought was that she represented Knowledge. However, intelligence itself wasn't an _emotion_. This emotion wasn't about learning  _itself_ , but the emotion that fueled her desire  _to_  learn, and once she understood that, Raven knew what to name this statue.

"Avarice, you give me a blessing in the form of a curse. You give me greed, but you also give me an insatiable lust for knowledge and desire to find the truth, and for that, I acknowledge you." The stone glowed orange in return, and she turned to face the final two statues.

Fueled by the boost from Courage, she was able to brave the fear that rose in her when she faced  _Other_  Raven. Knowing that she now had control over her fear, though, she was able quell it and speak calmly. "At first I thought that Depravity was your name, but I was wrong. Naming you as evil would only give you that much more hold over me. You are…" she paused, as her mind settled on the title that felt  _right_. "Rage. You are the source of my passion and my anger. You give me the ability to fight for what I believe in, and when combined with Courage, you make me unstoppable. You do not control me, because you are...a part of  _me_. I acknowledge you." The stone remained dark and a pregnant pause ensued, making Raven's heart creep up her esophagus. Grudgingly, Rage began to glow bright crimson, and she let out a breath she didn't know she was holding.

She paused for a second after turning to the last statue, but no matter how hard she thought, the name of this particular emotion refused to surface. "I don't know who you are, and I can't say I've ever felt you." She began honestly, hoping that she'd at least get a star for effort. The statue gazed back at her, kind, solemn and somehow foreboding at the same time. For some reason, this Raven's stony gaze was more terrifying to Raven than dropping into the sea of darkness, or the fear of acknowledging Rage as part of her psyche. Raven was afraid because this statue was speaking to something buried deep in her soul, waking something up, and she was terrified of what that could potentially mean.

"I…I'm afraid of you, of what you might mean for me," she admitted, deciding to ignore the terror in her belly and clasping the statue's outstretched hand. "But you're a part of me, so…I acknowledge you." She gasped as what she expected to be cold, forbidding stone nearly scalded her fingertips with a deep, violet heat.

Slowly, so slowly, the statue blinked, and Raven watched her stone twin's lips curve in approval, " _I_  am Love,  _you_ are Hope. And  _we_  acknowledge  _you_." Raven looked down as her body shimmered with blue light, and then everything went black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> View the (almost) entire work here - https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5649572/1/Ultraviolet


	7. Tanzanite/ "Dignity"

 

* * *

  
_"_ Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before."

  
_—Edgar Allan Poe,_ The Raven

 

* * *

For the first few weeks, sharing a room with Wren had gone without a hitch. Robin had agreeably avoided and ignored the loft at all costs, and Wren didn't go postal on him when he was being, as his friends called it, "OCD". He'd graciously declined to comment on the _very audible_  voices sometimes coming from the loft or the bathroom in the middle of the night—even though he and Wren were undoubtedly the suite's sole occupants—and Wren had never complained that although Robin made a point of turning off the  _loft's_  lights at ten sharp, he himself never retired to bed until a few hours before class started.

After today, though, it would all end. This morning, Robin had noticed the acrid smell of something burning and was instantly on alert, but, looking around, he saw no fire. Something told him to look up, and when he did, he saw smoke waft lazily from the direction of the loft. He couldn't see much of Wren's room from the ground floor but part of the blackened ceiling was clearly visible. He dismissed it at first, not wanting to break their no-argument streak; sure that Wren had it under control, but afterwards? Robin spent the entire  _day_ preventing himself from going up there. Eventually, his resolve faltered, because he  _knew_ that it had been exactly  _36 hours_  since he last saw Wren leave the loft, and something  _had_ to be wrong.

It wasn't that he was keeping  _tabs_  on Wren or anything, of course. Robin was a  _detective_ —it was his  _job_  to notice things. He hadn't left the suite all day, nor had he gotten any sleep the night before so he would definitely have seen Wren leave and he  _hadn't,_ not once _._

Robin knew that he'd be violating every rule they'd silently agreed upon if he went up to the loft. He  _knew_  this, yet his unshakable sense of responsibility  _would not let him_  continue to ignore Wren (who could be in danger) just for the sake of peace. If Wren didn't like it…well, he'd just have to deal with that later.

And that is how Robin found himself breaking their unspoken truce and climbing the stairs leading to Wren's room later that night, unwilling to put it off any longer. He reminded himself with each step that the  _only_  reason he was doing this was because he had a _responsibility_ to make sure that Wren wasn't dead or dying. He was  _only_  concerned because it'd look terrible on his Teamwork Evaluation record if something awful happened to his roommate while he'd been idling less than twelve feet away.

It was most  _certainly_  not because Wren was actually starting to grow on him for some obscure reason and most  _definitely_ notbecause the thought that something could be wrong with Wren made his insides twist uncomfortably.

Oddly, the first thing Robin noticed was that the candles surrounding the room were all but burnt out; the shape of Wren's bed a shapeless shadow in the weak and flickering light. After fumbling around in the dark and cursing the sorcerer's weird obsession with it for five minutes, he found the light switch.

Later Robin would tell himself that it was only because of his  _profound sense of heroic duty_ that he nearly lost it when his eyes finally adjusted. White-faced, unmoving, and still dressed in Friday's clothes, Wren lay on his back at the foot of the bed. From his nose ran a steady stream of bright red that marred his ashen skin and spotted his duvet, while soot from the blackened ceiling floated around like singed snow. Robin started forward, stopped mid-stride, and turned back to the staircase, starting to dial the dorm's emergency medic unit on his cell before it occurred to him that they might not get here in time and  _what was he going to do if Wren died because they took too long_? He looked back wide-eyed at Wren's limp form, and forced himself to think rationally.

Wait. He'd received the  _same_ training as the EMU*, and had saved  _quite_  a few lives on  _quite_  a few occasions. He could  _totally_ handle this.

"Hey, Wren. You haven't come out for a bit, and the guys were asking about you…" Robin lied, struggling between wanting to get closer and  _not_  wanting to be too close in the event that Wren was having some kind of supernatural hibernation period and would attack violently upon waking. Robin tried calling out to him once again, this time slightly closer, but he didn't so much as twitch.

As if he'd just cornered a tiger instead of a comatose teenager, Robin neared, watching closely for signs of life while his mind screamed at him that each second he wasted being a coward could mean death for his roommate. After getting close enough to realize that Wren's chest  _was_  indeed rising and falling, he finally stopped panicking and remembered how to breathe, transitioning easily into medic mode.

Robin carefully climbed onto the bed—his added weight causing the mattress to dip and groan in protest—and checked for vital signs. A faint, yet steady pulse fluttered against his fingertips, but there was no time to be relieved—Wren's tie had somehow twisted and tangled up around his neck, blocking airflow. Moving quickly, Robin detangled the tie and tossed it aside, not registering the sound of fabric ripping as Wren's shirt tore in the process. His hands stilled, however, as they came into contact with not skin, but the smooth fabric of some kind of sleeveless bodysuit. A sudden, sharp intake of breath made him look up as Wren's body realized it could now breathe freely, and the half-formed thought that Wren's chest beneath the latex looked suspiciously… _meaty_ , evaporated.

"Wren, can you hear me?" Robin asked, torn between the foolish hope that he'd only been sleeping—that is, if all young sorcerers slept for 36 hours straight while bleeding from the nose—and the fear that it was some sort of prolonged, magical seizure.

He wasn't responding. Robin put an arm around Wren's thin shoulders, gently pulling and shifting him upright and into a sitting position. Not finding anything clean nearby to staunch the blood still streaming from his nose, he cradled the back of Wren's head with one hand, swiftly pulling his own t-shirt off with the other and pressed a corner against Wren's small, upturned nose. He didn't even notice that his favorite,  _pristine_  white tee was slowly turning crimson, or that excess blood ran in rivulets down his arm and onto the already stained sheets.

The blood gradually slowed to a trickle, then stopped altogether. Putting down the shirt after he was sure the blood had stopped, Robin held Wren at arm's length and examined the bodysuit more closely for any physical wounds he might have missed. There weren't any visible gaping holes or gashes but he couldn't tell for sure without removing it altogether. Robin was so engrossed, looking for a zipper or button of some kind to get the confounded material off, that he almost didn't notice that Wren was stirring.

"Wren! Wren, come  _on_. Dude, open your eyes for me." He coaxed when he realized the smaller boy's eyes had begun to flutter. Maybe it was just his already strung-out nerves but something about the way he looked in that split second made Robin's arms go limp. Without support, Wren crashed into his chest, and the next thing he knew, Robin was staring up at the charred ceiling. Sprawled on top of him, Wren made a noise—a soft, mewling sound—into the skin of his neck and he went rigid.

In retrospect, Robin had no idea what possessed him to freeze at that precise moment. He couldn't help but wonder sometimes that maybe his hesitation right then was the catalyst, the spark that ignited an inferno, the jump-start that sent his entire life careening down a collision path with disaster, forever jeopardizing his dignity.

The chill of Wren's skin on his neck and chest sent goosebumps speeding along his arms in a frenzy. Robin found that he was suddenly—inexplicably—hyper-aware of every inch of his skin that was touching Wren. Giddy anticipation as silken violet strands brushed against his lips turned into shivery fascination as Wren's mouth moved against his neck, and the self-proclaimed "Boy Wonder" was rendered completely and utterly helpless by the sensations.

Robin was in the middle of marveling to himself that Wren's hair was just as soft as he thought it was when suddenly, what he was doing finally caught up with his brain, and reflexively, he tried to push Wren away. However, being more entangled than he expected, their positions only ended up reversed. Pushing himself onto his elbows, Robin stared down, breathless and mystified by the utter _absurdity_  of the whole situation.

And of course Wren, at that point, opened his eyes.

* * *

Consciousness returned to Raven in fits and starts. First came the impression of being enveloped in warmth, the smell of smoke, then panic as her senses instinctively cast out and discovered that the warmth surrounding her was  _human._ Sluggishly, as if she were treading through molasses, Raven pried open her eyes.

Oddly enough, she wasn't shocked at Robin's face hovering five inches above hers, or even alarmed that a  _shirtless_  Robin was lying  _on top of her._  In the split second that their gazes were locked, Raven was struck with the image of a child who had just been caught doing something extremely naughty. It was _terrifying_.

They gaped at each other for another few eternities until Robin must have noticed that she was starting to hyperventilate, and to his credit, looked a little apologetic before scooting back and helping her into a sitting position. At the same time, Raven realized that  _her_  shirt was also missing. She quickly crossed her arms and the two proceeded to assess each other, both wide-eyed and afraid of what the other was thinking.

"What the hell—" "Dude, what—"

Robin let out a nervous breath and as she gestured for him to go first, Raven wondered if the level of "oh shit" in the room could possibly go up any higher.

"First of all, are you…alright?" As his gaze traveled her body, suddenly the woven threads of her bedspread seemed extremely interesting. Apparently, she was not as desensitized to the male physique as she'd thought.

"What are you talking about? I'm  _fine_ —"

" _Wren._ " Robin had started radiating the most peculiar emotion. The sharpness in the way he said her name was alarming—giving Raven the distinct feeling that she was either insane or missing something extremely important. "You were…you weren't _…_ " The feeling only grew as he hesitated, and she tried not to leap across the bed to throttle it out of him, shirtless or not.

" _What?_ I wasn't  _what_?!"

"You weren't waking up," he blurted, and Raven finally realized that Robin was  _shaken._ Shaken, but also  _relieved._  She felt oddly pleased—he'd been  _worried_  about her. The degree of his relief was so _steep,_ though. Either he honestly valued their… _acquaintanceship_  more than she thought, or this…this had happened before.

"I…wasn't…waking…up?" she repeated after she'd recovered from this realization, heavy sarcasm making it clear that she thought he was overreacting. "Don't tell me you were performing CPR."

"I found you  _passed out_ , in the  _dark_ , bleeding and surrounded by  _smoke_." Robin's expression had turned dark, his voice lowering to little more than a growl, "Your tie was  _wrapped around your throat_  and you could barely even  _breathe._ So forgive me for being a human  _being_ and checking to make sure you were not dead."

"Well, obviously I'm  _not_  dead, so you can go back to your  _Birdcave_ now _._ " Suddenly bewildered and embarrassed and angry all at the same time, and, not to mention, _still_  without a shirt, Raven realized that she needed to get him away from her before he looked a little too closely at her upper half. "Don't you have some extra credit ass-kissing to do?"

That seemed to tick Robin off even more, which was…actually not that surprising. Blue eyes blazing, he leaned in close, the promise of death in his voice as it whispered over her face. "Do not think for a second that just because I give you your space means that I will sit back and ignore when you're in trouble. As long as you're my roommate, I'm  _obligated_  to look out for you, whether you like it or not."

His threat sounded dangerously like a promise—as if he were vowing to protect her—and Raven couldn't help but feel irritatingly comforted. Of all possible things, in that instant Robin seemed almost…likable.

Of course, Raven was not about to admit this fun fact, not to Robin  _or_ to herself. "Well, I  _apologize_  for being such an  _inconvenience,_ but I wasn't in  _trouble._  I was simply meditating. I wouldn't expect you to understand—"

"I  _know_  what meditation is, Wren. You were half _dead—_ practically in a coma for thirty-six  _hours_ ," he gestured above them, " _And,_  you _fried_ the  _ceiling_. Meditation, my  _ass_."

He indicated the blackly scrawled words above their heads and Raven gasped against her will when she read them:

_Azarath Metrion Zinthos_

Just  _thinking_  the smoldering inscription called the magic to Raven's hands, and this new, boundless feeling sent her heart racing.

"No, that was…homework…" Distracted, she turned her hands over, marveling at the contained magic and forgetting her anger momentarily. "It's kind of advanced magic, I guess. I didn't expect it to be so powerful." This seemed to infuriate Robin further, and he proceeded to angrily lecture her on practicing _safe magic_.

" _Advanced magic_? And you say  _I'm_  ass-kissing…Did you even think about what might have happened if you'd lost control? What if someone got hurt because you want to impress your professor? Do you even  _care_? You seem to be only thinking of yourself, Wren—"

Raven spun on him, magic flaring. " _Excuse me?_  Don't you ever,  _EVER_ presume to tell me who I care about! I care more about everyone in this  _entire school_  more than you realize, alright?! Every waking moment of my life is spent  _alone_ , Robin, do you want to know why?If I lose control,  _everyone around me is in danger._ Do you know what it's like to live like that?  _Do you know what it's like to never be close to someone?"_

Robin faltered in his tirade, shocked and speechless at the outburst. "I—I…"

He had no idea, really. Of  _course_ she'd known that this was a risky spell, but she didn't try it because she wanted to be  _reckless_ , or because she wanted to impress some  _teacher_. Any likability for him that she might have had evaporated, and was replaced by pure, unadulterated fury. The air crackled with magic, and a hum rose as all of the electric items in the room strained against Raven's wrath. "Why are you so fucking  _blind?_  Is it that impossible for other people to have genuine intentions too? Or are you the only one allowed to be the hero in your little world?"

"W-wren, I—"

"Don't worry," the bed squeaked indignantly as Raven leapt off, fumbling about for her strewn clothing. How did he effortlessly manage to make her so  _angry_? "Since I  _obviously_  need to be  _supervised_ like a _child,_ I'll be doing my homework in the  _library_  from now on."

* * *

"Azarath…Metrion…Zinthos…" Power rushed to Raven's fingertips, eager to be released. With her eyes closed, she let out a wave of magic, letting it wash invisibly over the library's walls and whisper over the bookcases.

Raven could feel the cool wetness in a drop of sweat as it slid down the frazzled librarian's temple on the first floor, and the heartbeats of the students on both the first and second floor etched themselves into her psyche. And the  _emotions_ , so many emotions.

However, instead of overwhelming terror as a cacophony of hundreds of thoughts and desires tried to merge with her own, Raven was able to separate herself almost fully, something she could never have hoped to manage without her incantation. For the first time in nearly a month, Raven was glad that she had risked it all to come to Paladin. The utter bliss that came with the semblance of control she'd so desperately needed was worth the trouble, all of it. Even if the headmaster—no, even if Batman _himself_  came down and expelled her at this very second, she would go happily.

Well, not  _too_ happily. There was still the problem of finding out what happened to Phaesya, and, probably more importantly, remembering what had happened during the first thirteen years of her life. It was if someone had cordoned off that section of her memories, deeming it "unfit for Raven consumption". She sighed into her book. Currently,  _that_ particular project was going nowhere.

"Wren." Someone slid into the seat beside her, and Raven knew without looking that it was Robin. She'd felt him when he'd first walked in, and by the determination rolling off of him in waves, she'd given it about five seconds before he would make a beeline to her table. "I wanted…to apologize for last week. I didn't mean to offend you or imply—"

"Oh, I think you meant to  _imply_ , all right."

"Dude, you're not making this easy—"

"As hard as it is to believe, Boy  _Blunder_ , the entire world does not  _exist_  to make things easy for you."

Robin held up his hands, offering her his palms in a placating gesture, "Look, can we just start over? I'm apologizing for blowing up at you, okay? I was wrong—I was a little on edge and I said some things I shouldn't have. I…I didn't realize  _why_  you took such a risk, so I just assumed—"

She shot him a questioning look. "And what made you realize?"

"I kind of asked your professor about the spell you were working on, and he told me that you've been working pretty hard to control your abilities..."

Raven scoffed in disbelief. "You did  _what?_ "

He shrugged, having the decency at least, to look sheepish,"…I'd really like to get past this…this  _antagonism_ between us."

Raven was silent for a few minutes, studying the page in front of her for so long the words blurred and swam together. His sincerity was almost overpowering but his impatience was deafening her senses. She was still somewhat angry but she couldn't help but relent to him. "I'm…sorry for calling you blind. You're just narrow-minded."

"I…Okay, I'll take that. But can we at least agree to be more…" Idly he flipped through one of the books on the table as he fished for the right word. "Vocal? With one another? I mean, we don't have to be friends, but—"

"I understand, Robin. I'll let you know the next time I'm going to do a high-risk spell, or something. I apologize for scaring you, too—"

"I was  _not_  scared—"

"I'm an  _empath_ , Robin."

" _Regardless,_ I don't want you to feel like you have to leave the room to study. It's your room too, and I don't want to make you uncomfortable—"

"Robin. I've got it. We're okay.  _Gods_ , your hero complex is annoying sometimes."

" _Excuse me_  for having morals. What is this you're reading, anyway?  _Tongues of the Ancient Dead…_ Sounds…optimistic."

"What, my professor didn't tell you?" Her sarcasm wasn't lost on Robin, and he shot her a dry look.

"No, he was too busy telling me the magical story of your birth."

A chill ran down Raven's spine at his words—if only that were actually the case. She half-smiled to cover up her discomfort, and gestured to the book he held.

"I'm researching my incantation—those words on the ceiling?"

"The kid at Student Affairs say they won't pay to fix that, by the way. He also said something about not being responsible for devil worship. Asshole."

"Whatever. I don't really care. What's more important is that I  _understand_  it. An incantation is useless in combat if…if I don't know the meaning behind the words."

"Ah, hence the dead language books. You know…I could help you with that…if you want." There was an unguarded hesitancy in Robin's tone; he sounded genuinely… _friendly_. He must have noticed it, because he quickly added in a more brusque tone, "Bruce used to have me study dead warlock languages to be prepared when fighting one. I could use the information in my report on Criminal Mystokinetics."

"Sure…I guess. If you…want," Raven echoed, unsure of what to do with his unexpected kindness. He'd somehow managed to draw more words out of her in the span of fifteen minutes than Byte had in the entire amount of time she'd known her. She decided to chalk it up to his infectious and insufferable morality, and handed him another couple books. "Good…good luck."

Hours passed, and although his steady focus on her assignment was… _touching_ , Raven was beginning to doubt that Robin would get any farther than she did, dead languages or not.

"Hey. Library closes in an hour. Maybe…we should call it a day—"

"I've got it. Where's my prize?" Robin looked up at her with an easy grin, and it occurred to Raven that the sapphire in his eyes contrasted perfectly with the ebony of his hair. Suddenly her mouth wouldn't work properly.

"P-prize?"

"Fine, no prize then." He pretended to sulk until Raven gave up and snatched the book he was holding.

"It's not in there, Wren. I just realized that part of your incantation is in  _Nocte—_ Batman had me do a case report on a warlock who only casted  _Nocte_  spells once."

" _Nocte_  spells are a reflection of the caster's intentions…"Raven flipped to a page in one of the monstrous books, fingers nearly trembling with excitement. "They only have one formation—origin, motivation and promise. If I translate the incantation from  _Nocte_  then…" Raven looked at him with widened eyes, unknowingly causing Robin's stomach to clench unexpectedly. "Metrion would mean justice, and Zinthos would be an oath, a...a promise of vindication, specifically for those who have been wronged."

* * *

Wren was looking at him strangely, and Robin absently wondered if he had something on his face. It was similar to the look he had when Robin had first heard him "talking to himself". Wren had stumbled out of the bathroom and stopped short, fixing him with the oddest look. Their eyes had locked and Robin had felt so strange, as if he were standing naked in front of a crowd of Starfires.

That is to say, it wasn't an  _unpleasant_  weird feeling, because obviously being naked with a bunch of Starfires wasn't necessarily a  _bad_  thing. The fact that Wren was having that effect on him was the bad thing.

Robin was never one to deliberate over anything, and this was no different. He decided once and for all that he  _liked_  this—he liked  _Wren_. He liked the thin, tiny, unwillingly righteous violet-haired boy, and he was not going to deny it any longer.

Robin wouldn't deny it, because sure, he liked Victor and Garfield as well. And hell, he even liked Roy— _and_ he liked Roy a whole lot more than he liked the other guys.

What he wouldn't admit was that the way he liked Wren…he didn't know how to explain it but it was different. And it was  _worrying_.

Robin didn't even know what it was about Wren that he even liked, or from what point he'd even started, because he was pretty damn sure that he'd hated Wren from the moment he saw him and found out that they were sharing rooms. All Robin knew was that Wren was just as hungry for justice as he was—and he found that he could not dislike someone so much like himself.

There was an awkward silence growing between them but Robin didn't break eye contact."That sounds like an amazing incantation, Wren. I'd be proud to fight alongside you if I had the chance."

Color was beginning to rise in Wren's cheeks, but before Robin could comment on it, or better yet, make him do it more, they were interrupted by a soft "ahem".

A strikingly beautiful woman with braided midnight-blue hair that hung almost to her knees stood before their table. "I'm Professor Huang—Head of the Spellcasting and Sorcery Department, but I'm also known to the students as Nightlocke. Wren, I've been assigned to help you regain your memories. Are you familiar with the term Menigenesis?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EMU* - Emergency Medical Unit - The campuses' emergency medical services.


	8. Amethyst/ "Mystery"

* * *

 

  
_"_ From childhood's hour I have not been

As others were; I have not seen

As others saw; I could not bring

My passions from a common spring."

  
_—Edgar Allan Poe,_ Alone

 

* * *

"I've been given access to your records…or at least, to what little we have of them."

They were sitting in an office glamoured to look like the inside of a witch's lair—at least a small, slightly intimidated part of Raven  _hoped_ it was glamoured. The musky, complicated smell of incense and dried plants settled on everything like fine dust while shadows flickered across cavernous walls lined with shelves and complicated instruments. Forgotten bits of paper—discarded half-finished spells, perhaps—littered the wooden floor while an invisible breeze lifted the hair from the back of her neck. Slitted golden eyes blinked owlishly at her from a gilded birdcage half-obscured in the dark ceiling.

Raven was suddenly struck with the thought that she should have stayed behind in the library with Robin.

Nightlocke frowned down at the records on her desk as if she were expecting answers to materialize from it. "There's nothing about you here besides your Winter Quarter progress reports…and that you were scouted while living homeless in Idlewild Park?"

Raven cleared her throat, and hoped that what emerged from the other end of her sentence passed for masculine. "Um, yes, I was." It, of course, was not, so she swallowed her humiliation as the witch offered her a lozenge from a wooden bowl on her desk. This was dangerous territory.

"Have you always been homeless?"

For some reason, Nightlocke looked slightly out of place in her own office. Ancient-looking wire-rimmed glasses at odds with manicured hands and delicate nose. A tattered and almost comically pointed witch's hat sat in the corner of the desk. Raven imagined a greenish, warty Nightlocke stirring a steaming cauldron, laughing maniacally, and relaxed a bit.

"…Wren?" A manila folder flapped at Raven accusingly.

"I-I don't know. I don't really remember much from before I turned thirteen and I don't think I have any family. I suppose if I did, they don't know I exist," Or simply didn't care. "I'm not sure of my biological age, or even my birthday for that matter."

With an air of disappointment, Nightlocke sighed and removed her glasses. "I suppose that's why I've been assigned to your case. I'm a memorywitch, among other things, and your memory seems to be the key to your situation."

"You mentioned Menigenesis?" Raven offered when the sorceress had been staring at her for an uncomfortable amount of time. Also, she was pretty sure the birdcage hadn't been right next to her shoulder when she first came in.

"Memory regeneration. It's a form of magic I'm known for. I usually use it with interrogation but we can use it to help you regain your lost memory," Nightlocke replied. "If you consent to it, over the next several weeks we'll be doing some intense hypnotherapy sessions. I'd like to memorywalk with you through the last four years of your life until we get to the point in time you cannot access. Then we'll try and figure it out from there."

"The-the last  _four_   _years_  of my life?" Raven's voice was barely a whisper. "Can't we just look at the block directly?"

"Well, yes, sure we can. If you don't mind severely traumatizing yourself. I don't know the reason you can't remember your childhood. Whether or not your memory loss is spell-induced or trauma-induced, uncovering too much at once is dangerous. It can cause irrevocable damage to your psyche," She paused. "If you're worried about me finding out that you're a girl, you can relax—that's strictly between the two of us."

Raven was pretty sure that her heart had flown out of the window. She didn't blame it—Raven had been putting it through a lot of stress as of late.

"Truthfully, I'd been hoping that you'd be honest with me, Wren." Nightlocke said as Raven digested this. Pointedly, she directed her yellow, feline gaze to Raven's right shoulder. "Quincey is the one who tipped me off in the first place. Silly little dragon thinks himself quite the ladies' man."

Raven turned stiffly, and sure enough, a little crimson-scaled head sniffed at her blazer enthusiastically. The rest of his body hung halfway out of this cage, which swung precariously as he flapped his tiny wings to keep balance.

"Go on, give him a pat. He won't leave you alone until you do, and that's hardly conducive to what we have to accomplish today."

Something in Quincey's innocent serpentine stare reminded her of  _Garfield_ —of all people—and she gave in and stroked his cool, scaly head with a finger. He crooned with pleasure and arched his neck.

"Since you're not a pile of ashes right now, I know you're not a threat to Paladin."

Raven quickly yanked her fingers away from where they scratched Quincey's belly, causing Nightlocke to chuckle. She banished the birdcage back to the depths above them with a flick of her jade bangles.

"Stop being so anxious. Quincey only fries people who deserve it."

An indignant squawk sounded from the ceiling.

Raven tried to speak, but her heart was still lodged in her throat. After a few unsuccessful attempts to clear it, she reluctantly accepted the lozenge, and the dark room filled with her naturally husky rasp once more.

"—You…could lose your  _job_."

"Only if you get yourself found out. Now, do you agree to Menigenesis sessions with me twice weekly?" Nightlocke thrust a piece of parchment and an old style quill into Raven's hands. Bewildered, she studied it for so long that the words swam and blurred together.

"Why…why are you helping me? I can't imagine what benefit this could possibly bring you, o-or the school—and I don't know how I could possibly return the favor or pay you or give you whatever it is that you're looking for—"

"Don't be dramatic." Nightlocke snapped, golden eyes flashing and making Raven sit up a little straighter in her chair. "Accept help when it is offered and use it to your advantage. Self-pity will get you nowhere in this world."

"I  _wasn't_  being dramatic," Raven blinked and tried not to feel offended. "I wasn't being dramatic and I'm not looking for pity. It's just that—you said it yourself—this is  _dangerous_ —"

"You came here looking for answers, correct?"

"Y-yes." How did she know?

Nightlocke regarded her coolly. "Wren, I am three hundred years old and have been a master sorceress for two hundred. I can handle whatever it is your little mind has to throw at me. Now, either sign the papers or live with the mystery and guilt of your past for the rest of your life."

Raven tried not to feel like she was signing her soul away to the devil.

* * *

Nightlocke removed her fingers from Raven's forehead, and stared at them, as if they suddenly didn't belong on her hand. Smoke spiraled from the candles as a phantom wind disturbed the chalked borders of the circle around them.

"Well,  _that_  was interesting."

 _Interesting_  was not the word Raven would have chosen. Her cheek was pressed against the rough floorboards in at least an inch of dust, and vaguely she wondered if Nightlocke had swept her office in the past hundred years. She groaned.

Her head felt like a thousand hammers pounded against the inside of her skull, and tiny pinpricks of light flashed beneath her closed eyelids. Is this what they meant when they used the term 'seeing stars'? The room swam as she rolled over and sat up, darkness threatening to swallow her up again.

Nightlocke stood, slightly wobbly and disheveled herself. She wandered out of the circle, steadying herself on the shelved wall as Raven drew her knees up and pillowed her head on her arms.

"Don't try to stand. I'll be right back."

Raven made a muffled attempt at a response that sounded vaguely like "Mmmgrmmhf?"

Nightlocke responded from somewhere behind a section of bookshelves. She sounded impossibly far away, and Raven had to struggle to catch her words.

"—serious magical overload," she was saying as she returned to the circle to sit beside Raven, her arms full with a bundle of odds and ends. She placed a small stone near Raven's feet—"To ground yourself."

Raven lifted her head and considered the stone, oddly pleased that the stone matched the blue stone of her  _Ajna_ chakra. Wearily, she rested her fingers on it.

"Enchant it with your mantra—you do have one, right? Of course you do," Nightlocke murmured as she rummaged around in the bundle of items, "Right now your qi is all over the place—you'll deplete your powers you don't ground yourself."

Raven obediently mouthed, "Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos." The stone glowed softly beneath her fingers, and the thundering symphony of drums inside her head began to subside.

"Feel better?" Nightlocke didn't wait for a response, and instead held out another item—this time, a fist-sized clay pot with small clawed feet. Tipping open the lid she showed Raven the fragrant ground leaves with the occasional yellow flower inside. "This is Yára. Be careful—no, don't drop it!"

A flush rose up the pale skin on Raven's neck and she withdrew, embarrassed. Her hands had been shaking.

Nightlocke sighed, and rested the pot beside her instead. "Hold onto your stone. It'll get better after a few minutes. The Yára is for curing binding spells and entrapment. It should help with the headaches too. I assume you get them a lot?"

Raven nodded and wondered when Nightlocke was going to tell her what had happened after she went under. She was purposefully avoiding eye contact, but Raven could feel panic, sticky and cloying, rise like bile in the older witch's throat.

"Wards for sleep," Nightlocke continued coolly, as she unrolled a scroll with delicately inked runes. "And directions on how to use them."

Raven finally found her voice. "Why do I need sleep wards?" It wasn't the question she'd intended to ask, but happened to be the first thing that fell out of her mouth.

Nightlocke stilled, and for one horrifying moment, seemed unsure of herself. However, the emotion slipped from her face so quickly, Raven was sure she'd imagined it.

Finally, she looked directly at Raven and smiled thinly. Raven was not reassured. "They're just for protection."

She gave the witch a look.

" _Okay_. Honestly, Wren? This is unlike anything I've ever dealt with, in all my years as a sorceress."

"Professor.  _What did you see_?"

"…What did  _you_  see?"

"I didn't  _see_  anything!" Unless she counted the backs of her eyelids as something. Raven doubted it.

Nightlocke didn't explain or respond, though. Instead, she silently handed her a a few more items—a couple of books on charms and protection spells, an amulet of rowan twigs and Yára flower, and a list of herbs to get from the campus greenhouse—and ordered her out.

* * *

Nightlocke shut the door behind the girl and let out the breath she'd been holding. Apparently, Wren—no, _Raven_ —had no memory of what had just transpired, and instead walked away without a scratch and drained of magic. But Nightlocke herself.. _._ She slid down the wooden frame of the door, legs no longer able to support her.

The image of an elderly woman staked to the wall was burned into the backs of her eyelids. She kept seeing blood run down spider-veined legs to drip into the space between the floorboards below, where a young Raven slept, oblivious.

"Oh, Quince…" Nightlocke muttered to the baby dragon whose cage had managed, once again, to mysteriously make its way down from the ceiling to rest near her feet. "What have we gotten ourselves into?"

* * *

" _Raven_."

Inexplicably delicious shivers ran down the length of her back.

"Roy," Raven felt somewhat proud that her voice came out even, as his voice was only two centimeters away from her ear. He was so close she could feel his lips curve into a smirk. Infuriating. "We. Are. In.  _Class_."

"I just wanted to ask which page we were on." He hadn't moved, obviously not threatened by her furious hiss. His palm was pressed into the small of her back, searing the skin beneath the thin fabric of her training suit.

"Roy, get your hand _off—_ "

"Anything you'd like to share with the class, Mr. Lee? Harper?"

The class snickered, and Raven seriously contemplated murdering Roy. "No, Professor Gabe. I was just letting Mr. Harper know which page we were on, sir."

"Wonderful. In that case, the two of you shouldn't mind demonstrating the defensive block we've been discussing?"

"Absolutely!" Roy was far too enthusiastic with his response. Raven swallowed her panic.

She followed him to the training mats at front of the half-classroom-half-gymnasium and fidgeted with her bodysuit, trying not to look at the rest of the class. Eyes just as blue and just as frozen as the sky outside followed her movements, demanding attention.

She chanced a glance at their owner. Robin, unabashed, stared back.  _What is going on with you two?_  said his eyes. Raven ignored him.

"Alright. Mr. Harper, you will be the attacker in this scenario." The Physical Defense instructor sidestepped the mats, giving them ample room. "Lee, you will be blocking him. No magic, just the technique we discussed."

"Yes, sir." Her magic was  _still_  recovering from the Menigenesis session the day before, anyway. She couldn't use it if she tried.

"Don't hold back, Harper."

"Oh, I _won't._ "

"On my whistle. Three, two, one—"

The whistle hadn't even finished blowing before Roy lunged at Raven, startling her enough that she lost her footing as he crashed into her. They grappled for a few seconds, all thoughts of the defensive move vanished from Raven's mind as she concentrated on not getting shoved to the ground.

Roy backed off, still smirking, and they circled each other. He lunged again, but she was prepared, this time. Quickly, she threw up her right arm in the defensive stance. And it worked too, for a few exhilarating moments. Long enough for Raven to feel smug before Roy reached right under her arm and socked her in the stomach.

Raven coughed as she doubled over, lungs struggling to get oxygen in around the sudden pain. Roy backed off, surprised. He hadn't expected her to leave her side unprotected like that. Shocked silence blanketed the previously jeering class—even the instructor started to feel uncomfortable. He brought the whistle to his lips to signify the end of the demonstration—

"Again."

Though her voice was ragged, she shrugged it off and took the defensive stance once more.

"Three, two, one!" The whistle blew, they circled. He lunged and she blocked, blow by blow, sloppy but successful. Belatedly Raven noticed that Roy was actually pulling his punches, and the thought that he was holding back on her made her furious. She switched into offensive, goading him. Jeers rose once more from the crowd, delighted by the turn of events. It was his turn to block as she tried to rain messy blows upon his head and cuff his sides as he spun.

"You hit like a girl," Roy was laughing as he blocked her. Laughing! Raven snarled, fully enraged, and tried to trip him, hooking her foot around the back of his knee. He caught her ankle effortlessly and twisted, forcing her off balance. She kicked against him as he pulled her, and together they struggled until they tumbled to the floor in a tangle of limbs.

A sense of déjà vu seized Raven as she looked up at Roy from where he'd sandwiched her between the mat and his heaving chest. His eyes were hungry as they flicked from her eyes to her mouth, then back up again. They caught their breaths against each other until the shrill sound of the whistle made them both jump.

"Uh. Okay, thanks for the demonstration, boys…I think. You can, uh, go back to your seats now."

Roy rolled off of her and held out a hand to help her up, which Raven ignored.

* * *

"Dude, don't look now, but  _somebody's_  giving you the hairy eyeball," Garfield not-so-inconspicuously jabbed Raven's side with his elbow, and jerked his head towards the front of the cafeteria. "I'll give you two guesses. And the first one doesn't count."

Raven didn't need to look up to know who he was talking about. Robin had been trying to get her attention since Physical Defense and she'd been pointedly ignoring him. She had a strong suspicion he wanted to talk about her impromptu battle with Roy and for some odd reason she was embarrassed about it. Like he'd caught her doing something naughty.

Which, of course, made no sense.

"'Sup, losers?" Roy, the current object of Raven's humiliation, slid into the high backed chair beside her. He wordlessly handed over his plate of mashed potatoes in exchange for Garfield's fries—an obviously longstanding tradition. Raven tried not to feel left out.

"Why are they  _blue,_ though?" she mused, deliberately focusing her attention on the blue fries as Robin approached the table.

"Same thing I said, dude," Garfield said sagely.

The three of them watched Roy eat the strange fries in a somewhat nauseated silence. He offered one to Raven, then chuckled at her look of abject horror.

" _No._  Fries should not be blue."

"They're packed with extra nutrition for growing young men," protested Roy. "You guys just don't know what you're missing—"

"If you two are quite finished discussing your food, we have something far more pressing to deal with." Robin interrupted, arms folded, face grim. Raven suppressed the urge to roll her eyes as he looked at them expectantly.

"What's that, Robin?" Garfield asked between mouthfuls of veggie burger, oblivious. Only it sounded more like, "Mmmfhf hrmfmf, Rmmfhrf?"

"Wren's hand-to-hand combat skills are awful." He stated it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "I can't have you bringing down our team's average, Wren."

"What was that? I'm sorry, it sounded like you said, 'our team'. As in, the one we haven't been assigned to yet. As in, the one whose average I can't possibly bring down because it _doesn't exist._ "

Both Roy and Garfield were giving her pitying looks.

" _What?_ "

"I dunno, Wren, he kind of has a point. Your form  _was_  pretty bad when we were sparring," Roy said, not unkindly. She noticed that he decided not to mention the team thing.  _Don't tell me he gets to pick his team, too?_

Seeming to read her mind, Roy dipped his head slightly, answering her silent question.

Raven took a deep breath, and let it out. Took a second to remind herself that this was  _good_ ; she  _wanted_  this.

"Okay. So how do you suppose we fix this, O fearless leader?" In her mind she recited her new mantra— _Accept help when it is offered and use it to your advantage. Accept help when it is offered and use it to your advantage._

"We spar," Both Roy and Robin spoke at the same time.

"At night, after classes. The Azure dorm training room's usually empty around eight," Robin added, pausing to give Roy a funny look. "That okay with you?"

"Fine with me, man," said Garfield, not one to be ignored. "But not tonight, I have a hot date with Professor Luna." He waggled his eyebrows.

Robin gave him a withering look. "…Right. Anyway, I was referring to Wren. Will you spar with me—"

" _Us,_ " said Roy. "Spar with ' _us_ ', you mean. You said, 'spar with  _me_ '."

"— _Us,"_ Robin shot a meaningful glance at Roy, then turned back to her. "Tonight?"

Raven sat back in her chair, no longer interested in her food. "I'll be there."

* * *

Like Robin had said, the training rooms were deserted in the evening, and Raven took the time to quickly wash up before the boys arrived. Afterward, she regarded herself in one of the long mirrors that lined the wall of the communal shower room. Angry red marks crisscrossed the skin on her chest where the breastbinding material had rubbed her raw, and the skin on her stomach was slightly discolored where Roy's fist had connected with it. She decided not to chance healing herself as her magic was unpredictable while it was so low, and instead watched the bruise as it slowly blossomed under her skin.

Raven sighed, and turned her attention to her hair, which was beginning to grow out. It now brushed against her shoulders and hung annoyingly in front of her eyes. The dye was also beginning to fade, ebony roots peeking out of a sea of violet. She gathered it up, barely managing to coax it into a high ponytail suitable enough for sparring. She was suddenly aware of another presence in the bathroom and dropped her hands, hair falling around her face. Frantic, she brushed it out of her eyes.

"Who's there?"

No response.

Not bothering to towel off, Raven hopped straight into her combat suit, zipping her fingers in the fabric a few times in her haste. A quick survey of the foggy room confirmed that there was no way in  _hell_  that she'd be able to see if someone were hiding somewhere in its murky depths, so instead, she gathered her things hightailed it out of there.

* * *

_3 hours later_

* * *

"No, you have to  _anticipate_  my movements—"

"I  _am_  anticipating!"

" _Without_ your magic, Wren!" Roy shouted as he released her from a chokehold, their combined lack of patience showing on both their faces and in the sweat streaming from their temples.

" _I'm not using magic!_ "

Robin looked on from his seat on a balance beam, amused.

"…Shut up, Dick." Roy grumbled, stepping off of the mat to grab a towel from his bag.

"I didn't say anything."

"You were thinking it."

"Oh, so  _you're_  the telepath now?"

Roy growled and told him to do something very inappropriate with a cactus. Robin chuckled.

" _Down_ , Fido. Go take a water break. I'll take it from here."

Roy threw up his hands in the universal gesture of "I give up" then stalked over to the water machine and furiously jabbed at its buttons.

"And, dude, try not to take your anger out on the vending machine. Remember what happened last time."

"I said fucking shut  _up_ , Robin!"

Despite herself, Raven found a smile worming its way onto her face at their banter. "So, how long have you two been married?" She couldn't help it. She laughed, causing the lights to flicker warily. Roy kicked the now malfunctioning water machine.

Robin turned to look at her with a hunger that mirrored Roy's from that morning and her laughter dried up in her throat. His smile was feral as he ordered her to put up her hands.

"I'll have you know, Wren, that I am  _only_  attracted to women," he murmured as he advanced on her, smirking as she tried to put more space between them. "Extremely so, in fact."

Raven didn't know what to say to that as he glanced south of her collarbone, and she told herself that his gaze lingering on her tightly wrapped curves was completely coincidental. Her curves were supposed to be imperceptible in this suit. Still, Robin seemed distracted…

So she took this opportunity to happily deliver an uppercut to his unguarded jaw. Robin wiped the blood from where his teeth had smashed against his lip, and he let out a sharp bark of a laugh—half bewildered, half delighted.

"Nice one, Wren!" Roy whistled as he returned victorious, three water bottles in hand. "Now just do another fifty of those Robin will let us call it a night. He's only doing this because he likes to get beat on, you know. Real masochist, my little Robin."

"Roy?" Robin ground out as he twisted Raven's arm behind her back before she tried to land another blow to his face.

"Yes, sweetheart?"

" _Please_  shut up."

Robin was trying very hard to stay sane at this point. Wren had backed up against him as he struggled against Robin's hold, but Robin could not get over the fact that the dip of his hips fit the curve of Wren's ass perfectly.

It was just so… _wrong_. On so many levels.

He dragged him even closer, unconsciously. He was so intent on the taboo feeling of their bodies sliding against each other that he failed to notice that Wren was calling time. Abruptly he let him go, and Wren stumbled away from him, cradling his elbow.

Roy stared at him, noting the wild look in Robin's eyes. An uncomfortable feeling brewed in the pit of his stomach. "Dude." It was one word, but they'd known each other long enough for it to speak volumes.

Robin composed himself. It was easier now that they were no longer touching. He glared icily at Wren. "In the real world, a villain won't stop when you call 'time', Wren. They won't go easy on you—why should I?" His voice was cool, calm and collected, even as his heart ran a thousand miles per second. His reasoning was flawless, especially since it was actually true. Wren wouldn't suspect a thing.

 


	9. Crimson/ "Heartbeat"

 

* * *

****

  
_"_ That blush, perhaps, was maiden shame -

As such it well may pass -

Though its glow hath raised a fiercer flame

In the breast of him, alas!"

  
_—Edgar Allan Poe,_ Song

* * *

Raven was staring up at wooden planks and for a horrifying minute thought she was staring at the lid of her own coffin. Light filtered in through the spaces between the boards, though, so she couldn't have been buried. She tried to sit up, nearly smashing her head in the process.

Voices rose above her, and she tamped down her rising panic to better hear them.  _Wait,_ she thought,  _I_ know _this dream._

"We know she's here," someone was saying. They were standing right above a small gap in the wood and Raven could just barely see the scuffed slacks and oddly polished shoes of the speaker through the hole. "We  _will_  find her—with or without your help." His voice was the cool, slimy hiss of a snake, and Raven shivered despite having heard it countless times before.

This dream had been recurring in the weeks since her first session with Nightlocke, although normally she woke up after staring at planks—floorboards, she realized—for five minutes. The dream had never really moved past that point. Even as the taste of foreboding invaded the back of her mouth, this time she was eager to see where it went next.

A sharp  _crack_! made Raven jump and a bodily thump hit the floor above her, showering her in dust and in darkness. A whiff of too-strong old-lady perfume rushed by as a body was dragged along the floor and belatedly Raven realized that the sound had been a gunshot.

The  _snick_  of a knife being drawn brought Raven's attention once more to the peephole, and immediately she wished she hadn't.

The man with the snake-voice and polished shoes was drawing a blade across an elderly woman's throat slowly and with much pleasure—though it seemed as if she were already dead from the gaping hole the bullet had made in her forehead. Crimson pooled around the blade and fell generously, staining the woman's blouse and splashing to the floor beneath them. Drops splattered Raven's frozen face as she looked on in abject horror, unable to lift a finger to stop him.

The snake-man was unperturbed as he dipped his fingertips in the blood and smeared a circle on the wall behind them, carefully inscribing some sort of rune. It gleamed wetly when he was through, ardent red in the lamplight. He spoke to the blood and it boiled on the wall, suddenly sentient. It garbled a reply she could not comprehend.

"We think she's here, but her energy is guarded. We are…unable to find her presently. What are your instructions, sire?"

"Yes, there was some...trouble. But that has been taken care of! Shall I leave the body here as a warning to the mother?"

"Yes, sire, I understand. No, this will not happen again. Yes, sire, I am aware of what will happen if I do not return with the child."

"Thank you, sire. I will contact you again once we find her."

He bowed deferentially as the rune ceased to bubble and dried to nothing more than a brown smear. Another man—one of his lackeys, perhaps—stepped into view and whispered something inaudible to him and the snake-man straightened with a nod. Slowly, deliberately, they hauled the body out of Raven's line of sight. She cringed as the woman's slippered feet scraped the floor above her.

Suddenly, the snake-man's face filled Raven's peephole. He smiled indulgently at her as if they shared a secret-the curve of his mouth snaking out on either side of the blood-stained finger he placed to his lips. It split his face in half, reaching past his ears and his eyes—they were nothing more than desolate hollows with fire burning where his soul should have been. An ear splitting cry tore from her mouth unbidden, but it did not deter him from leaning closer and darting out a forked tongue to taste the air inches from her face. Her screams grew deafening as the snake-man opened his mouth to show her the rows and rows of broken glass meant to pass for teeth. His blistered lips were moving, mouthing out the words "wake up" but she didn't understand-she was too busy scrabbling backwards on her hands and heels as scream after scream fell out of her mouth and threatened to tear open her dreamworld.

* * *

Robin blinked at the LED readout on the alarm clock near his bed. 4:30 AM blinked back at him, unrepentant. He sighed and rolled over, just about to give up on the idea of sleep when thrashing and a loud thump above him had him halfway up the loft's stairs before he even registered that he was out of bed. Belatedly he thanked what lucky stars there were that he'd remembered to pull on his boxers first. A straight month of sleeping in his suit while he had worked on an important case with Bruce last summer had given Robin a fondness for the freedom of sleeping sans-clothing while in the safety of the dorms.

A low, anguished groan interrupted his thoughts, calling up the memory of a sprawled, bleeding, comatose Wren. Robin's heart tripped over the sound of panicked whimpers as he hurried up the steps and made his way over to where Wren lay, fallen beside his bed in the pre-dawn darkness, twisted in his sheets. A deep hum rose as everything in the room rumbled with unbridled magic—desk drawers opened and slammed shut, curtains strained on their hook, his bookcase shuddered in hysterics—and Robin ducked as a large tome nearly clipped his head as it flew by to crash against the opposite wall.

"Wren? Are you awake?" Kneeling beside the mass of sheets and writhing pale limbs Robin realized the boy was dreaming—no,  _convulsing_  with a nightmare—and relaxed slightly. Nightmares, at least, were a problem he was familiar with—years of experience had made him expert in handling them.

Robin unraveled and maneuvered Wren into an upright position and noticed with a start that his eyes were already open—pupils so dilated with unadulterated terror that there was no longer any violet to speak of. His grip tightened reflexively as Wren cried out in fear, pushing away and lashing out with his fists. A couple blows managed to connect with Robin's jaw and he cursed as he grabbed Wren's hands to prevent him from hurting himself.

"What the—dude,  _chill_   _out_."  _This kid is even able to land hits in his_ sleep _,_ Robin thought incredulously, somewhat proud yet  _one-hundred-percent sorry_  that he had ever decided to tutor him in hand-to-hand combat.

A few more books whizzed by out of the darkness as Wren's bookcase suddenly decided to upend itself, and the bed behind them groaned as it was lifted into the air. Okay,  _now_  he was a panicking. Just a little. Robin held Wren's forehead against his own and stared hard into his glazed over eyes, desperately hoping his words would get through to him with the mere strength of his will and eye contact. "WREN. WAKE  _UP_. _"_

Wren's nails drew paper-thin lines of crimson where they scratched and scrabbled at the hands cradling his face, but Robin's stubborn streak ran a hundred miles wide—he was  _not_ about to give up. Seconds turned into minutes until finally, Wren realized he was no longer dreaming, and his hands fell limp at his sides.

"… _Robin_?" he asked, voice heartbreakingly small. "Is that you?"

"Yeah, it's okay, I'm here," said Robin, deflating with a sigh as he felt the bed lower itself to the ground behind him. The room slowly began putting itself back in order. "I'm right here."

A myriad of expressions almost too quick for Robin to name flit across Wren's face—he saw terror, confusion, and relieved surprise before registering Wren's arms suddenly around his neck. Robin felt dirty sort of thrill as the featherlight touch of Wren's breath ghosted across his skin, and his heart thrummed with the memory of the last time they were in a similar situation.

"I was so  _scared_ ," Wren was trying to say as he sagged against him, but the words kept coming out as hiccuped sobs, "He… _killed_  her…he was going to…he was going to…"

Robin nodded his understanding, awkwardly patting Wren's shoulders as they hitched with each gasped breath and trying to ignore the apocalyptic implications of a normally unflappable Wren coming undone in his arms.

"Don't be scared," he said, a cold, uncomfortable feeling pooling in the pit of his stomach as he felt tears drip onto the skin of his neck,"No one is going to hurt you. Not…not while I'm here."

They both jumped as a lightbulb shattered to pieces.

"You, um, really need to calm down," said Robin, laughing nervously, "before the entire dorm comes crashing down around our heads."

Wren took a deep, trembling breath and nodded, pulling away. He realized his arms were still draped around Robin and he jerked them away as if he were on fire. "Yeah, c-calm. I-I need to…calm down."

"Just…take deep breaths," said Robin as he stood and offered his hand, but Wren didn't see it—he was too busy looking down, eyes trained on the floor in shame as the enormity of his actions dawned on him. Robin rolled his eyes. "Come on, up you go," he said, reaching down to grab Wren's arms and supporting him as he rose shakily to his feet.

"Okay, I'm fine. You can let go of me now." Wren jerked away from him again and rushed to put space between them, his hands shaking as he bent to pick up his discarded sheets. Robin didn't even notice, he was too busy trying to convince himself that the only reason he was up in the loft at four-thirty in the morning comforting a terrified Wren was because he had come to think of him as a younger brother.

As he helped Wren re-spread his bed and right the bookcase a small voice in the back of his mind scoffed at his denial—even  _his subconscious_ knew that his impulsive emotions around Wren had crossed the knife's edge of friendship after their first sparring match weeks ago. It knew that filing away the odd pull he felt towards him as a desire for  _brotherly companionship_ was only more safe-sounding than the…alternative.

Once Wren was safely back in bed and the room was back to some form of decency, Robin could not find an acceptable reason to remain. He hovered awkwardly for a few moments before quickly spinning on his heel with a gruff "g'night" and jerked suddenly—the cold hand suddenly circling his arm stopping him.

"Stay," Wren doesn't look at him as he says it, and Robin has to struggle to hear his voice. "Please. I…don't want to be alone right now." His tearstained cheeks are a little pink and his knuckles are white against the corner of the navy blue sheet he has clenched in his other hand and suddenly it's like Robin is looking at an entirely different person. Who was this stranger?

Wren wordlessly shifts over to give him room and they lean together against the headboard in a companionable, if somewhat tense, silence. Eventually his hand slides off of Robin's arm, and his skin feels strangely cold in its absence.

"We can…talk about your dream if you want. Sometimes voicing your nightmares takes the fear away—"

"I'd…rather not, thanks."

"I think it would help if—"

"No."

Silence blanketed them again, and after a minute Robin glanced at Wren out of the corner of his eye, assuming that he'd fallen asleep. He hadn't though, and instead quietly contemplated his folded hands, stark white against the dark covers. "O…kay—"

"I think it's a memory," Wren suddenly spoke up, and Robin shuts his mouth so quickly he nearly bites his tongue. "I…don't have any memories from before I turned thirteen."

"You're an amnesiac, yeah, I've heard," said Robin, quickly adding at Wren's look of alarm, "I remember Professor Huang—Nightlocke—mentioning your memory that day in the library. I just put two and two together."

"It's not just simple amnesia. I… _we_  think that someone purposely blocked my memories via magic or something. But our…sessions…never revealed anything. At least, not to me. And…and then I started having these… _dreams_."

"It's not uncommon for people who have lost their memory to remember bits and pieces through dreams," said Robin gently. "Maybe you can learn from your nightmare."

Wren looked dubious, and Robin scoffed, slightly insulted. "I'm a  _detective_ , remember? I  _can_  help."

"Detective in  _training_ , last I checked." Wren says it lightly, but Robin can see that his eyes are squeezed shut, and his hands have fisted in the blanket again as he relives the nightmare behind his closed eyelids.

"Hey," he said, hesitantly touching Wren's curled fist, "I used to have nightmares all the time when I first came to live with Bruce."

"Ha." Wren wasn't smiling, and clenched the sheet even tighter. Robin withdrew his hand, resting his head back on the headboard and closing his eyes.

"I'm serious. Eventually Alfred installed a baby monitor near my bed so that he could talk me out of whatever dream I was having without having to walk across the entire Wayne manor every night."

Wren chuckled quietly, for real this time, and Robin opened his eyes just in time to see his lips twist into the wry almost-grin that could only be classified as Wren's trademark 'smile'.

At what point did he become able to tell the difference? Just how much of his life was now occupied inconspicuously studying Wren?

"It's a little hard to imagine you being afraid of anything, ever," said Wren, misunderstanding Robin's slightly scandalized expression and shrugged. "But, I suppose a life of fighting crime  _could_  traumatize a kid."

"It…wasn't crime  _fighting_ , exactly," said Robin, staring hard at the shadows the moonlight made on the ceiling. He could see Wren giving him an odd look out of the corner of his eye. He sighed. "I actually enjoyed that. The real reason isn't something a lot of people know, and I don't even know why I'm even telling you about it, but…I guess I'm kind of tired of keeping it secret."

The look on Wren's face had progressed to one of mild alarm and Robin realized that he might be coming to the wrong conclusions.

"I used to…dream about the night my parents died. Every night was the same—my mind replayed the moment over and over again and I was always frozen, always never able to move and save them." The words come out in a rush, but Robin's chest suddenly feels suspiciously light. He clears his throat in the shocked silence that follows, knowing that he just made the both of them insanely uncomfortable but that talking about it to Wren would keep his mind off of his nightmare.  _And that maybe, just maybe,_  a thought whispered somewhere in the back of his mind,  _offering up this piece of myself, this eight-year-old secret, could win some of Wren's trust. (_ Although, to be honest, Robin had no idea when it had become about Wren trusting  _him_ — he was  _sure_ it had always been the other way around.)

Wren digested this for a moment, and Robin could tell that he was caught between wanting to know more and wanting to stay quiet out of decency. Eventually, he guessed his curiosity won out because he asked, _"_ How…did they die?"

"My family were circus acrobats. I was born in one of the circus tents on the first day of spring—my mom called me her 'little Robin'," Robin smiled a smile that was more of a grimace, and his voice grew bitter. "I took my first steps on a tightwire twenty feet above the ground and cut my teeth on greasepaint and sawdust. By the time I was nine, being an acrobat was my entire life. I never wanted dreamed of anything else. I always knew that this was what I would be doing forever; flying in the air with my family and traveling the entire world. We were weightless—falling wasn't a word in our vocabulary."

"Actually, I take it back, you don't have to tell me what happened—"

"One day I saw something I shouldn't have, but I was too much of a naïve  _coward_ to say anything. My idiotic, selfish fear caused my family to pay the ultimate price all because I was too afraid to speak up—"

 _"_ I…have no idea what happened, but…it kind of sounds like you're blaming  _yourself_." Wren's voice was incredulous. As if he actually  _believed_  that there was a way in hell that Robin could not be responsible for what had happened.

"You don't understand—it  _was_ my fault. If I'd have said something, they never would have gone up on the stage and the ropes never would have snapped and we could have gotten that  _bastard_ —"

"Did  _you_  cut their ropes, Robin?"

" _No,_ but—"

"Then  _stop it_ ," Wren's voice was suddenly sharp, and Robin complied, shocked into silence by the clarity of conviction in his violet gaze." _Obviously_  it wasn't your fault—you were a _child_. You of all people should know that by now."

"…You actually believe that, don't you?" asked Robin after a beat.

"Of course."

They were both quiet for a while until a chilly breeze from the open window forced Wren to wriggle under the sheets.

"How  _did_  you stop the nightmares?" he said, yawning up at him from his pillow and sleepily attempting to deter the conversation. Robin decided to let it go, secretly relieved that there was someone that didn't believe something he thought everyone suspected.

"I never said they stopped."

"…Oh."

"Yeah."

"Does it…ever get easier?"

Robin turned to study Wren, allowing himself to openly memorize the soft planes of his face in the fading moonlight. "I'm not going to lie to you. It's a price that we have to pay sometimes, as heroes. Nightmares and fighting criminals and making sure the same fate doesn't happen to others is our charge and our burden."

"A burden can be shared, though. Between…friends." Wren offered him a faint, reassuring smile. It was gone quickly though as his eyes drifted shut, and Robin wasn't sure if it wasn't just his imagination.

"Right. Between friends…and teammates."

"And Robin?"

"…Yeah?"

Wren didn't answer for a long time, and this time, Robin was  _sure_  he was sleeping and almost didn't hear him when he murmured, "It's time to let go. Mary says— _yawn—_ she says that she forgives you."

Robin blinked, sure that he'd misheard him somehow. " _Excuse me?"_

He waited for an answer, but Wren had fallen asleep, leaving Robin alone to deal with the demons of his past.

* * *

Light filtered into Robin's eyes as he woke with a start. Content with the rare feeling of a good night's rest, he stretched languidly and nearly fell to the floor. He tried to sit up and scoot closer to the center of the bed but stopped as he registered a soft and warm weight on his chest. He looked down in confusion. Wren slept soundly atop him, arms spread on either side in the blissful abandon of sleep. He'd also somehow managed to sprawl out across the entire bed, forcing Robin to the very edge. When did he—? How did he—?  _Oh._  The events of the night prior flooded his memory, including Wren's last odd phrase before he'd inexplicably fallen asleep.

The boy in question shifted in his sleep, causing Robin to nearly jump out of his skin—not because Wren had moved, but because of  _where was his hand right now?!_  Robin knew there was no possible way to disentangle himself without physically moving and potentially waking Wren so he could only hold his breath and pray fervently that Wren would move on his own because  _hoooooooly_ shit _he was not supposed to be having this reaction._ All intelligent thought vanished from Robin's mind as his blood, spiked with familiar heat, rushed south. His boxers tightened in response.  _Oh, please, god, not now, not now, not now._

The swish of someone opening the suite door yanked him out of his stupor and, not caring if he woke Wren, Robin leapt out of the bed, calming just enough to nonchalantly descend the stairs—like he always came down from Wren's room in just boxers—and call out a quick "Hey, Gar, hey Vic," before quickly shutting himself in the bathroom.

Garfield, always oblivious, contented himself with raiding their fridge. Victor, being far more observant than Gar and knowing Robin long enough to know that all  _kinds_  of wrong was written all over his face, narrowed his eyes. "Hey, Robin," he said uncertainly, approaching the bathroom door. "Everything okay?"

"Sure, why wouldn't it be?"

"I dunno, you looked kinda spooked, like you saw a ghost or something—oh, g'morning, Wren—" Victor paused to greet a sleepy, confused looking Wren. "Yeah anyway, Robin, like I was saying, you looked kind of spooked when you were coming down from Wren's—"

"Uh!" Robin suddenly burst out of the bathroom, interrupting him in the middle of his sentence, "Vic, wait, isn't today the day we get the Winter Exam results back?"

"Um…yeah," said Victor, eyebrow raised as his good eye flicked between Robin (who was so clearly trying to change the subject) and Wren, (who seemed like he genuinely just got out of bed and was two seconds away from blasting Garfield to another dimension—understandable, as having a furry green teen rooting around in your fridge is the last thing you want to wake up to first thing in the morning). "We made team Gotham, of course."

Robin grinned as he joined Garfield and Wren in the kitchenette, playfully shoving Gar out of his way and grabbing two mugs from their hooks above the sink. "Was there ever any doubt?"

"Nah, I knew we would make it. All  _five_  of us." Suspicion forgotten for the time being, Victor turned to Wren and handed him a crisp envelope. "Congratulations, man, I heard you made top marks in Physical Defense."

Wren looked at him with a mixture of amusement and confusion before opening the envelope. "I…I made the team?" He gaped at the paper in disbelief.

Robin put the tea kettle on to boil for Wren and poured himself some coffee. "Like I  _said_ , was there ever any doubt?"

The door beeped again as Roy entered a few seconds later, hair dripping wet. "I heard the news—"

"Did you hear it in your  _shower_?" said Gar, offering him a hand towel from the sink.

"I  _did_  actually, roommate broke the door down to yell about how unfair it was," said Roy as he accepted the towel, and they all laughed. Robin's eyes narrowed as he noticed a quick look pass between Roy and Wren, and Victor's eye narrowed as he noticed Robin noticing Roy and Wren. Something was up, and damned if he wasn't going to find out what it was.

* * *

"Sooo….first order of business…" said Garfield as he read over Victor's shoulder from one of the shiny tablets they'd all received earlier that evening at the schoolwide assembly. "Choosing our codenames."

The five of them were gathered for the second time that day in the penthouse suite, all unanimously deciding that it would be their temporary HQ until it was time to move to Gotham for the Spring Quarter. Raven stared down at the electronic surface she held in her own lap, outwardly serious, but inwardly probably more excited than the five of them combined. She had to take a deep breath and count to ten every few minutes as to not blow the suite's light fuses with her all of her contained emotions.

"Actually, Gar, first we're supposed to vote on leader," she said, calmly reading from the guidelines on the tablet. Garfield groaned loudly from where he hung upside down on the sofa beside her.

"Oh, come  _on._ We all  _know_  Robin's the undisputed leader, can't we just pick our codenames now?"

"No, Wren's right. I think we should vote," said Robin. "Let's do things the right way, guys."

Roy and Gar rolled their eyes at each other. Raven turned to Victor, but he just shrugged. "Alright, everyone. Everyone in favor of Robin being Team Gotham leader?"

Everyone besides Robin and Raven raise their hands.

"Majority rules, then. Robin you are now the leader of Team Gotham. Please, restrain your enthusiasm." Victor deadpanned, entering Robin's name into the database as leader. Robin shrugged at Raven and spread his hands as if to say  _hey, what can I do?_   _Majority rules._

"Whatever! Codenames, then," Garfield bounced upright in his seat, barely able to contain himself, as Raven huffed and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like "should've murdered him while I had the chance" to her tablet.

"I really hope—for your sake, Gar—that your codename doesn't involve the words  _green_ or  _tofu,"_ said Robin, and Raven watched the wind abruptly leave Garfield's sails.

"Dude, like  _you_  can talk. You've been running around as a human traffic light outfit for the past five years." Garfield's tone was dead serious as he stared accusingly at him, causing Victor and Roy to burst into helpless laughter.

A muscle ticked in Robin's jaw as this went on for a few minutes until even Garfield joined in their raucous display. Only Raven looked on mirthlessly, not having ever personally seen Robin's uniform, and suspecting that its design might have something to do with his past life as an acrobat.

"You guys done?" Raven held up her tablet, reminding them that this was an official team meeting—they needed to get serious.

Roy eventually straightened and schooled his features into some semblance of seriousness but Victor still clutched at his stomach, gasping for air. "Come on, now you  _know_  that was hilarious, Rob," he said between gasps that quickly subsided once he registered the look on his leader's face. "…I'm…I'm sorry, man. Won't happen again."

Robin tried to look curt and indifferent but Raven knew better, being the only one on the team able to feel his projecting emotions for what they really were. He locked gazes with her suddenly, determination masking the hurt in his eyes as they searched hers. There was a message in them that Raven couldn't quite make out.

"From now on, I'd like to be known as Nightwing," he said in the brief silence.

"Aw, Rob, I…I didn't mean to hurt your feelings." Garfield shifted into his favored apologetic form—a kitten—and rubbed against his leg.

"No, Gar. I'm serious. It's time to…let go of my—of  _our_ —past as sidekicks and as children because right now we are being sent to Gotham as  _adults._ So either grow up or go find another team."

The mood in the room sobered quickly after that. Raven looked down at her lap once more, replaying the unreadable stare he'd given her over and over, analyzing it as the others rattled off their chosen codenames.

Feeling everyone's gaze on her, she looked up. "What?"

"Your codename? What do you want to be called?" Victor spoke slowly, and Raven realized that she'd just been asked twice but had been too preoccupied to notice.

"Raven. I…want to be called Raven." The name rolled easily off of her tongue before she could call it back but the others had already accepted it without question, Victor's fingers quickly tapping the screen as he entered her name into the database. She could see Roy try to catch her eye but purposely ignored him. Raven was a unisex name, wasn't it?

"Alright, you guys. Tell me if I have this right," Victor read the names on the list one by one, "Raven, Nightwing, Speedy, Beast Boy and, yours truly, the one and only Cyborg."

Garfield snickered. "That's a pretty long codename, 'yours truly, the one and only Cyborg'."

Raven felt the corners of her mouth curve as the gang went right back to arguing good-naturedly and the meeting's heavy atmosphere lifted.

Maybe…she could get used to this.

* * *

_Gotham City, Spring Quarter_

* * *

Raven peered through the slits in the uneven planks. Beast Boy was taking an awfully long time with the diversion.

"Remind me again how hiding in a  _storage crate_  will give us the element of surprise," Raven spoke to the wood in front of her face, "as opposed to simply cloaking ourselves with my magic?"

"You said yourself that your cloaking spell is energy intensive," His mouth was at her ear, and she could hear the smirk in his tone loud and clear yet shivered against her better judgement. "We need your magic at 100 percent tonight because, as you know, the Slayers now have a sorceress."

Nightwing fidgeted, trying to dig out his communicator in the cramped space, and every time he moved, the length of his chest slid along Raven's back. It was finely crafted torture and she wondered, not for the first time, what vendetta Speedy had against her. It had been his plan, after all.

"Well, could you at least try to stop moving? It's distracting." Raven snapped, trying to focus on the empty moonlit dock. What in the actual  _fuck_  was taking them so long? She wasn't worried so much about Nightwing and his…strange tendencies as of late than she was of  _herself_ , and what her more  _carnal_  side would do to the hormonal—and quite attractive, she admitted to herself reluctantly—man she was currently trapped in close quarters with. Naturally, for some odd reason Raven's hormones had been running  _majorly_  haywire recently. She had no idea what was causing her heart to flutter and give her false heart attacks whenever she was near certain members of the opposite sex—let alone  _two inches_ away from one who proudly flaunted his new 'sex god' status (+) wherever he went. Apparently, since he was legal now—his birthday having passed a few weeks ago—every woman within a six mile radius wanted to get into his pants.

Nightwing sighed into the exposed skin on her neck, and she could feel the muscles in the arms he'd braced on either side of her clench. Frustration and heat rolled off of him in waves. Underneath it all, nagging at her senses, was the musky scent of desire. Raven couldn't tell whether it came from her or from him—they were so close—but she was pretty sure that it was hers, and that terrified her. She wondered if Batman had ever trained his prodigy to smell pheromones.

Raven's world screamed to a halt as a hand pressed into the dip of her waist and her mind grew cloudy. What…what were they doing here again?

"Raven," he bit out, and was all she could do to keep frozen as her entire being narrowed into the patch of skin beneath her suit that his hand covered. She was aware of nothing else as he drew closer, if that were even possible. "Let me see your communicator. I can't reach mine."

"Delta to Alpha squad. I'm running them to you now." Raven's communicator chirped with Beast Boy's voice and a sudden commotion on the dock outside brought her mind back to the situation at hand. As planned, she waited until they were close before blowing open the front of the crate. It worked surprisingly well—Raven and Beast Boy showered the dazed Slayers with tag-teamed over-the-top aerial attacks, providing cover for Nightwing as he secretly went for their leader—and it was all over in less than fifteen minutes.

"Alpha to Beta squad. What's your status?" Nightwing was barking into the communicator he'd commandeered from Raven as she and Beast Boy helped load the criminals into the waiting transport bus. She looked over at him, slightly worried. Speedy should have been back by now. "I repeat, Alpha to Beta squad,  _what is your status?"_

Static feedback burst from the communicator, and they all sighed, relieved. "This is HQ," Raven's heart dropped as Cyborg's voice responded instead of Speedy's, sounding even tinnier than usual. "We have a situation—I think Speedy's down. Transmitting his coordinates now."

Nightwing cursed loudly, and Raven grabbed the communicator before he could throw it in frustration. "Thanks, Cy. We'll find him. Raven out." She exchanged a quick, wordless agreement with Nightwing before grabbing Beast Boy. "Let's go, we're taking the skies."

"You know, I think it's really creepy when you guys do that whole no talking thing." They cruised the skies above Gotham, Beast Boy scanning the streets below with his eagle eyes as she did the same with her magic.

"And I think it's really annoying when  _you_  do that talking thing," said Raven, trying to feel for Speedy's aura. She hated when Speedy went rogue while on a mission. It was like finding a tiny needle in a haystack the size of Gotham,  _especially_  when Beast Boy was talking. "You're making me lose focus."

"You guys are always making eyes at each other and making the rest of us feel uncomfortable. Just get married already and get it over with."

"Gar, would you shut  _up_ and concentrate for two seconds? Roy might actually be in trouble."

"Please, Raven, you and I  _both_  know that he's probably at some chick's house, just like last time."

"Actually, that  _chick_  was working for our target. Speedy was the one who found out in the first place, dumbass."

"Uh oh,  _somebody_  sounds  _jealous_ ," sang Beast Boy. "Just  _wait_  until our fangirls hear about this—a forbidden love triangle among Gotham's hottest new bachelors—"

Nightwing's tired voice came in through her communicator just as Raven was about to send her teammate hurling out of the sky. "This is Alpha. I found Speedy. Report to HQ. Nightwing out."

"See?" Beast Boy banked low as they changed direction to head home. "Told you so."

* * *

Raven could feel the tension inside the compound for blocks before they actually arrived there. She put a hand on Beast Boy's shoulder before he bounded in and said something stupid. His eyebrows drew together in understanding, and they paused together at the compound's hidden entrance—an old, heavy cast iron door sequestered at the end of one of Gotham's many forgotten alleyways—bracing themselves for whatever was happening inside.

She turned to him and raised an eyebrow. "Ready?" He nodded, and they exchanged solemn looks before she punched in the passcode.

Cyborg stood in the common room between Nightwing and Speedy, not physically touching either of them but somehow still effectively stopping them from murdering each other. He glanced at the Raven and Beast Boy, the words  _help me_  written all over his face.

"How many times do I have to tell you to  _follow orders,_ Roy? You could have gotten yourself  _killed,_  or  _worse,_ endangered the entire mission!"

"Do you fucking  _hear_  yourself right now, Dick?" Speedy's voice rose to match Nightwing's. "Where the hell are your  _priorities_?"

"What the hell is going on here?" Raven approached them. It always ticked her off when they fought, mostly because they would be so angry that they'd purposefully say things just to hurt each other instead of actually talking about what they were fighting for in the first place. It was also annoying because she could  _feel_  just how deeply their friendship ran under the surface and she just couldn't understand  _why_  they were trying so hard recently to rip each other apart.

"I think that maybe it's time we chose a new leader." Speedy glared openly as Cyborg took that as his cue to sidle away, and Raven heard him mutter to Beast Boy, "I am  _not_  touching _that_  with a ten foot pole."

"Stop it, both of you. We are  _not_  choosing a new leader tonight,  _Roy_." Raven crossed her arms and tried to look bored as she used their given names, "And I don't know what Roy did, _Richard_ , but  _you_  need to take that bit about his life being less important than our mission back." Her eyes narrowed as she spat the last part at Nightwing, who looked slightly ashamed before his trademark stubbornness kicked back in.

"I'm not taking anything back. He put everyone at risk just because he didn't want to follow orders. He could have gotten himself killed and revealed our location while he was at it. All for some  _floozy_ and a  _blowjob."_ Nightwing's lip had curled into a savage snarl by the end of his sentence but Speedy just smirked at him.

"Well I didn't,  _did I?_  What's the matter, bird wonder, haven't been getting any alien ass lately?"

"Roy! That is out of line! What the fuck is wrong with you?" Raven felt her patience thinning. She was  _not_  equipped to be the voice of reason here. "You guys are best friends! Partners, even!"

"Oh, stop acting like you're so good yourself,  _Raven_." Roy snapped at her and her skin went cold. "I see the way you look at Dick sometimes, why don't you just tell him how you feel? Oh that's right, you  _can't_  because of your little  _secret_  mmpfh—!" Black magic encased Roy's mouth and he glared daggers at Raven, who froze in shock as sudden comprehension dawned on her.

"He's been enchanted! I don't know why I couldn't sense it before." Her magic had immediately found the cause of Speedy's uncharacteristic aggression once it came into contact with his skin and her senses cast out further, feeling along the borders of the foreign spell. "The Slayer's sorceress got him on our first mark. Weeks ago. Shit.  _Shit_. I should have  _known_."

It hit the rest of the team a moment later, and their eyes widened as everything clicked into place. Cy recovered first and went into full-on medic mode, at Raven's side at once. "I'll sedate him and get him to the medical wing. Do you think you can reverse the spell?"

"I'm not sure what it is exactly, but I'm sure it can be reversed. They don't call me the best warlock in Paladin for nothing, you know." Raven offered a small smile up at him and he nodded, administering a tranq as she kept Speedy still until he slumped forward. Beast Boy helped Cyborg load him onto a hoverstretcher and together they whisked him to the medical bay, leaving Raven and Nightwing alone in the common room.

She turned to him. He winced as Raven's magic washed over him, confirming her suspicions. "You, however, are  _not_  infected. You have no excuse for the way you were acting tonight, Richard. What's your problem?"

"What did he mean when he said you had a secret, Wren?" Nightwing shot back as he closed the distance between them. She held her ground as he neared, unwilling to show that she was intimidated. "And how  _do_  you look at me?"

"Your Nightwing mask doesn't scare me, you know." Raven averted her eyes, refusing to acknowledge his question. "And I couldn't have  _less_  time for your nonsense. Answer the damn question."

He drew even closer to her, pulling off his mask to fix her with his unrelenting ice blue gaze. She hated when he did that. The pure, unadulterated  _hunger_  she always saw reflected in his eyes never failed to shake her to her core. "You first."

"No."

"Disobeying a direct  _order_ , Raven? _"_

She scoffed. "Friends don't give their friends  _orders_ , Nightwing. We're a  _team_ , remember?"

"Friends— _teammates_ —don't  _keep secrets_ from each other."

"Do you  _really_  want to have this conversation? As if  _we_  know all of  _your_  many secrets, o fearless leader?"

That seemed to shut him up for a moment and they glared at each other, volatile emotions simmering under the surface. "I seem to recall trusting you with the only secret that matters to me," Nightwing finally said quietly. "I don't know why I thought you'd ever return the favor."

"Where are you going?" Raven called after him as he stalked towards the exit, grabbing his motorcycle keys from the bowl near the door.

"Doesn't matter. Tell Cy I'll be back later. Com me if anything." Nightwing said curtly, not sparing a glance in her direction and slamming the door on his way out.

Raven cursed at the door as it trembled in its frame.  _Why_  were boys so  _frustrating?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (+) Don't believe me, look it up.

**Author's Note:**

> View the work in its (almost) entirety here - https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5649572/1/Ultraviolet


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